There, Inside Your Mind
by Smidgie
Summary: Artemis is a deformed genius living beneath the Paris Opera House. Holly is the elf he kidnaps to be his forever, but the LEP won't let them be so easily… Crossover with the Phantom of the Opera.
1. Prologue: Meet The Monster

Hello, all!

This is a crossover with the Phantom of the Opera and Artemis Fowl. A few notes before we kick this opera off to a start: this is an AU, so please no emails as to why the story is all screwed up. Also, unfortunately there will be no Erik, so I sincerely apologize to all of those Phantom phans who love him as much as I do, but this will loosely follow the POTO plotline. The characters will be OOC by normal Artemis Fowl standards, but this is a crossover. Obviously in the books Artemis was never a disfigured madman. Oh, and this will be M.

For those of you not familiar with the Phantom of the Opera, a brief summary is that Erik, aka the Phantom of the Opera, is a hideously disfigured musical genius than lives beneath the Paris Opera House. He falls in love with a chorus girl, Christine Daae, and masquerades as an Angel of Music to gain her trust. However, when he reveals himself as his true, disfigured self, Christine becomes terrified of him and flees into the arms of her childhood 'sweetheart', the Vicomte Raoul de Chagny. Erik becomes increasingly more desperate to win her love, but succeeds in only frightening her more. The whole affair culminates in Erik dropping the Opera House chandelier and abducting Christine from the stage during her final performance before she is set to run away with Raoul. Christine eventually forgives Erik and promises to stay with him after he threatens Raoul's life, but he sets her free to live her life with Raoul as she wants to.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Artemis Fowl, as Eoin Colfer owns Artemis Fowl. I do not own the Phantom of the Opera, as Gaston Leroux, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Susan Kay, etc. own Phantom of the Opera. What part of my non-ownership isn't clear here?

Now that my babbling is over… enjoy!

(For Michal, because I miss you.)

* * *

The man swirled the amber liquid in the glass.

Around him the night was a shifting presence, a being of its own that existed but was as fragile as a butterfly's wing. He dared not turn the light on. He could not face the light. The light was accusing him with its illuminating glow, blasting him with its fiery condemnation. No, he dared not turn the light on.

The moonlight streamed through the windows, basking everything it touched in an unearthly glow. The sky was clear and cloudless, an ironic backdrop to the chaos that had defined his evening. It was morning, really, the darkest hour before dawn, and all the sane people of the world were asleep, but the man was still awake, slumped at a desk in the shadows, heart open and raw in the dark.

It had happened again.

One hand rose numbly in the darkness, finding his face and slipping off the covering that it found there. Still in shadow, the hand seemed to emerge from the dark, dropping a black full-face mask onto the desk. The man looked down at the mask that seemed to glower up at him, and with a swish of his arm knocked it to the floor. His eyes closed in shame as he lifted the glass to his lips and drank it down the contents.

Clunk. The glass slipped through his fingers to the desk. It did not break, but he wished it had. The pain would have been a relief to the emotional agony searing his soul, creating this atrocious and unbearable disorder in his heart that would not go away.

It had happened again. Against his better judgement he had brought a prostitute again to this haven, to this safe world he had created among the skyscrapers of Dublin. In his mind he heard again her screams, saw again her expression of pure horror as his mask dropped from her trembling hand… His eyes shot open and he took to his feet, pacing, striding up and down the room with legs still unsteady.

He stood before the windows, all of Dublin spread out before him, and he was reviled. Disgusted. Appalled. The thrum of humanity still existed even this late at night, taxis winding their way through the streets and pedestrians stumbling down the footpath, drunk on alcohol and the misery of existence… much like he himself. But those humans down there were a seething, hypocritical mass of human existence, and even if his own claim to humanity was tenuous at best, he could not stand to be among them.

_I must leave this place. _And as this astonishing, amazing thought occurred to him, he heard footsteps.

"Master Artemis?"

The deep voice cut through the air, but the man kept his back to the other even as he voiced a reply.

"Yes, Butler?" His soft voice reverberated around the room, and the bodyguard shivered at the resonance of the beautiful tones. It was the only beautiful thing about his master, the bodyguard knew, the music he produced. His master's face was as hideous as his heart.

"I have… disposed of the… woman, sir." The man could feel the bodyguard's disapproval stinging his back, but like always, he ignored it. His bodyguard was just another replaceable human being, albeit a loyal, well-armed one, and one that he trusted with his life to keep him from harm. Still, he harboured no illusions. Butler was in it for the money, just as he was. Just as they all were. But Butler was worth his exorbitant fee. Had not Butler kept him safe through all the years when his dealings with the criminals of the world had ended in someone aiming a gun at his head, particularly when they found out what lay behind the mask?

_Butler wasn't there at the carnival,_ a nasty little voice in his head whispered. _Butler wasn't there with you in the cage, when you were screaming for them to stop…_

He shuddered.

"That will be all, Butler." Again, the bodyguard was struck by the ethereal tones that ordered him from the room without a qualm. His master was a terrifying and unpredictable, a far more lethal killer than Butler would ever be for the simple reason that he did not care if he killed members of the human race, and for that reason the bodyguard hurried from the room.

His master waited to hear the footsteps sink into the distance, the door close behind his well-meaning bodyguard, and sank back into his desk chair. But as he did, the moonlight shifted, sharpened, and it fell upon his face.

He recoiled like a snake as he returned to the shadows, picking up the black mask from the floor and holding it as though it gave him strength. But the light had illuminated his features and he saw, as others would have seen, his own face in his mind's eye. Shuddering, he dropped back into his chair, head in his hands, painfully exploring the monstrous flesh of his face. Between the gaps in his fingers, a pair of overbright electric blue lights glowed in the darkness. It was with a surge of horror that any one viewing the sight of him would have realized that those blazing lights with their unnatural sheen were in fact the man's eyes…

The desires that had caused the whole miserable evening had not waned, had not ceased, and he burned in shame as his hand moved lower, touching skin where no other had touched before. This was the only release allowed to him, he thought as his rage burned brighter. No woman would touch such a hideous monster; no whore would ever be hungry enough or desperate enough for drugs or alcohol to sleep with him.

He would always be alone.

In a shuddering rush that was frightening in its intensity, ecstasy came upon him, and his mind went blissfully blank. For all of a heartbeat of time, the wretched thoughts that plagued his mind and wrenched his heart were obliterated. Crimson, he fell forward onto the desk, head against the cold wood, still shaking. The old thought returned: _I must leave this place._

He knew exactly where he would go.

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Please review! I'd love to hear what you think.

Smidgie


	2. Chapter One: The Captain

Disclaimer: I do not own Artemis Fowl, as Eoin Colfer owns Artemis Fowl. I do not own the Phantom of the Opera, as Gaston Leroux, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Susan Kay, etc. own Phantom of the Opera. What part of my non-ownership isn't clear here?

(For Michal, because I still miss you.)

* * *

**_Fifteen years later…_**

If you asked anyone about the Lower Elements Police, the first name to spring to their lips would be that of Julius Root, the apoplectic and undeniably brilliant leader of the LEP. The second would be that of Major Trouble Kelp, the fairy with the highest amount of successful missions in the history of the force. The third, however, was not particularly special, or clever. She had a pretty face but was not classically beautiful. Her name was Captain Holly Short, and she was the most controversial LEP officer on record.

She was the first female LEP officer to ever achieve captaincy status. She could fly a shuttle better than most male officers, which made her unpopular with the most of the LEP purely because she offended their pride. And since her success in assisting Major Kelp and several other prominent LEP officers in subduing the B'wa Kell rebellion, prime assignments coveted by the entire LEP seemed to be falling into her lap.

However, none of this was on the mind of Captain Short as she left Commander Root's office after a heated debate with her superior. Her usually smiling and cheerful face was closed and downright grim. She had a new assignment, and she was disgusted with it. She was to spend two weeks – really, however long it took – in Paris to complete a trivial task at the whim of ridiculous Council idiots who wouldn't know how to use a good officer even if she kicked them in the shins.

In Holly's opinion, it was a waste of time. She had never been a particularly good undercover officer, and there were certainly better people for the job. Certainly the commander, Julius Root, knew this as well as she did. But his hands were tied. Despite being the commander of the LEP, one of the highest positions in Haven, he was still subject to the whims and demands of _his_ higher ups. And they had demanded that Captain Short go on a nice, public mission, something they could put in the newspapers instead of her usual classified work.

And so she was to go to Paris to ferret out a minor criminal, a petty thief, one that a green as grass new recruit could have caught with no trouble. Holly was, to put it mildly, furious. The commander had shot her a rare look of apology as she left his office, but even that did not appease her. It was because she was female, she was sure of it. It was practically impossible for women to succeed in the LEP without being either extraordinarily pretty or extraordinary well connected, preferably both. But Holly was neither, merely very bright and very stubborn and very determined, and she would stick out this ridiculous mission of posing as a very small tourist in Paris.

That was the only perk of the job, she reflected bitterly. Paris was home to one of Holly's favourite theatres in the world, the Paris Opera House. Her parents had taken her there long ago, when she was very young, on a rare above ground visa. She could still remember the soft voice of her father as they had left the theatre. The child Holly had been weeping, overcome with the raw emotion present within the music. She hadn't wanted to leave.

"Shh, Holly," her father had soothed softly, while her mother anxiously looked around to check they were not being watched. "Shh, now. You must be a very good girl now or the Angel of Music will not come to you." And Holly, being the little girl she was, had believed him, had quieted down.

The Angel of Music was a figure often repeated in her childhood, a favourite bedtime story. Usually accompanied by her dreams of becoming an opera star, Holly often begged her father to tell her the story of the Angel of Music, who always complied. Why her father had used a Christian figure like an angel to embody music, Holly would never know, but the stories of the Angel would linger occasionally in her conscious mind, and always in her subconscious…

Her father had died shortly after that trip to the Opera, leaving Holly's mother widowed and Holly distraught. She had never thought to imagine the world without her father in it, without the smiling, wonderful man who had preserved his child's innocence for as long as possible throughout that childhood. But his death shattered that innocence. She could remember sitting by his bedside as he died, the wounds inflicted on him by a rogue gang of goblins too much even for the finest medical staff of the LEP to heal.

"But what will I do without you?" she had sobbed. "What will I do?" And her father had reached over and held her hand gently. "Holly, my child," he had said, "when I am gone I will send you the Angel of Music, and he will give your voice wings."

The Angel had never come.

So little Holly Short had lost her dreams, lost her hopes, and grimly and bitterly followed in her father's footsteps into the LEP. She had filled and then exceeded those footsteps, defying everyone who told her she would not make it, that she would never be a tenth of the officer her father had been.

Years later, the old bitterness still stung her, and the old grief of the loss of her father still ached deep beneath the scar tissue she had built over the wound. But perhaps some of that hurt would be healed if she returned to the Opera House, returned to that last place where she and her father had been happy… if she returned to the Angel…

_Don't be a fool, Holly, the Angel of Music doesn't exist,_ she scolded herself.

But still she dreamed.

_xx_

"So what have you got for me, Foaly?" she asked as she strolled through LEP headquarters into the centaur techie's office. The scent of carrots and horse assaulted her.

"And hello to you, Captain Short," said a voice from beneath a desk. She stared down at the hindquarters of the centaur, who had his human parts inexplicably under a desk. "Ah, there we go." Extracting himself from under the desk, the centaur eyed the elf warily. "Sorry, Holly, bit of complicated wiring had to be fixed."

She waved a hand. "Its fine, Foaly." The centaur read the frustration in her eyes.

"I take it you've heard about your new assignment." Her eyes were hazel fire.

"If you can call it that." The centaur tutted sympathetically.

"I knew you'd hate it. I told Julius so, but he never listens to me…" Holly managed a smile; the various annoyances that Foaly caused the commander were legend among the LEP. It was no wonder the commander refused to listen to Foaly when the centaur spent most of his time harassing him for a bigger budget. The centaur was rambling away happily to himself, so Holly figured it was time to get him grounded.

"Did you have anything for me, Foaly, or did you call me down here just to listen to you grouse at the commander?" she asked pointedly. Foaly grinned down at her.

"Sorry, Captain," he quipped, snapping off a sloppy salute. "As if anyone would want to talk about Julius for long. Come over here, I've got a few bits and pieces to show you…"

_xx_

She still couldn't believe it was actually happening. For all of her anger, all of her raging against the decisions they had made for her – she was above ground, and situated in the elite yet discreet hotel the LEP had picked out for her. The staff had been advised of the eccentricity of the tenant who would be occupying the suite for at least the next two weeks. Looking around the elegant rooms she would be staying in, Holly was willing to admit that perhaps her anger had been a tiny bit misplaced. There were worse assignments to get, like that one that had left Grub Kelp smelling like mud and urine for three weeks, or the ones that she had to work with Lili Frond on…

Yes, Holly decided. There were definitely worse assignments than this one. Despite the need to give daily updates to the council and the commander on how her search was going, she was virtually a free woman. Her assignment had been the source of much jealousy at the LEP, mostly from those who believed she had only got into the LEP by sleeping with every male offer in the direct chain of command. Just thinking about it made Holly angry, but as she sank deeper into the warm bath and sipped the glass of fruit juice in her hand, she couldn't bring herself to get angry.

They weren't the ones spending two weeks in what was maybe not paradise, but what was a lot better than work.

Holly sighed contentedly. Tonight she would get a good night's sleep, and tomorrow she would go on the hunt. And then tomorrow evening, she would go to the Opera House, and let the music sweep her away.

There were definitely worse situations she could be in, she thought. Definitely worse.

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Please review! Title suggestions welcome!


	3. Chapter Two: The Tribulations Of OG

Hey, guys. Thanks to everyone who reviewed for their amazing feedback and encouragement: winged-silhouette, Buchworm13, AgiVega, and not dead yet. Thanks heaps. :)

Smidgie

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Artemis Fowl, as Eoin Colfer owns Artemis Fowl. I do not own the Phantom of the Opera, as Gaston Leroux, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Susan Kay, etc. own Phantom of the Opera. What part of my non-ownership isn't clear here?

* * *

_**Chapter Two: The Trials And Tribulations Of O.G.**_

He raked a hand through his hair. Damn them! Damn them and damn their stubborn foolishness! He would show them what happened when they did not pay his salary on time!

Settling at his desk five stories below ground, he tore off his mask and threw it into a corner of the desk. The porcelain clattered harmlessly onto a stack of music.

Time had not changed Artemis; there was little about him to change. Time could not create a horror any greater than that which nature had, he reflected with a hint of sarcasm. Fifteen years had passed as though only one had gone by; his flesh was a little more grey, eyes a little more sunken, and there were wrinkles on skin that had once been paper thin and smooth. But all of this was usually covered by a mask, so no one noticed… not even Butler, who still delivered cleaned laundry and groceries once a week, even if his former bodyguard duties were no longer required by his erstwhile master…

Artemis was still alone.

Fifteen years prior, he had left his home he had constructed in the Dublin sky, had left the clouds and his beloved country for the depths of the Paris Opera House. He had settled in the dark cellars, creating a home out of the cobwebs and the dust, to nurture his bitterness and ferment his hate. Man had driven him here, driven him to settle amongst the spiders and the rats, to become little more than an ugly, writhing creatures like they were. He had come close to losing his mind in those early days, driven mad by the silence of the walls and the weight of the earth pressing down above him. he had been consumed with dreams of being buried alive, crushed beneath the soil of the earth and the stone of the Opera House.

It was the music that had saved him.

Music, echoing down from the opera house above. Music became his sole reason to exist; music became the force that gave him life. Music filled the gaps in his soul and gave him something to love, something to hold onto in the darkness and through the old pain that came back to haunt him on the nights alone when he could not sleep. He had slowly begun to surround himself with beautiful things again, as he had in the sky-high apartment, and arranged for all manner of musical instruments to be brought to him by the ever-faithful Butler. He had been sure the former bodyguard would have attempted to kill him when he requested a pipe organ – a massive pipe organ, like the ones in the cathedrals he no longer set foot in – but his self-contained bodyguard had merely nodded gravely and procured the organ through some means Artemis was not interested in knowing. So long as he got his pipe organ and everything else he desired or needed, Butler could have killed a hundred men to gain it, and Artemis would not have cared.

Artemis was blissfully numb. The pain was mostly gone now, and he had accepted that he would always be alone. He moved through life in a routine: wake, compose, haunt, sleep, and so on.

The entire haunting business occurred entirely by accident. He had been striding along one of the many back corridors of the Opera, and had happened upon a pair of little girls, ballet rats, as the rest of the Opera knew them. The duo of ballerinas had taken one look at him, screamed, and had ran in the opposite direction. He had thought little of it at the time – he was used to frightening children – but later he had overheard the same two little girls retelling their tale of terror to their friends among the ballet rats. "It was the Phantom of the Opera!" they had squealed in unison. He was intrigued.

More research unearthed the old legend of the Opera Ghost, the Phantom of the Opera… _Erik_. It was a myth, a story, a tale created by little girls and foolish old women, but he could not shake it from his head. So he had begun to haunt more assiduously, letting him be seen by the ballet girls, the stagehands, the performers, and the management alike. He had demanded a salary from the management and when they did not comply, he threatened their children.

That made them comply.

Twenty thousand francs a month was merely a drop in the bucket compared to the vast amount of money he owned, but he liked it. He liked demanding things from them, he liked the feeling of power it gave him, and he liked driving them insane with casting suggestions and various threats against the vile succession of prima donnas they insisted on casting. And he had, eventually, driven them insane: one manager had ended up in a mental institution when he began to hear voices and the other fled to Australia.

It was the new management that was the problem. They were two hard-headed businessmen who lacked the airy and vague attitudes of their predecessors. Both successful, they viewed the acquisition of the Opera as just another business venture. They cared little for the music, for the beauty of the Opera on its own. They were going to destroy it, Artemis knew, going to destroy it slowly, and he as the resident ghost was going to make certain that they would not… nor would the truly horrendous current prima donna…

Reflecting on that, he pulled a sheet of paper towards him, and began to write.

_Gentlemen,_

_Your failure to pay my salary has left me quite out of sorts…_

xy

"…_And we both know what an out of sorts Opera Ghost means… you leave me no choice, gentlemen, but to make an example of you to all of those who think they would defy me. And I assure you, I will not be merciful._

"_Incidentally, La Carlotta appears to be increasingly into her dotage. Truly, gentlemen, is not six years of auditory torment not enough? She has been blighting the stage since long before you took acquisition of my Opera, and I think you shall find that her health will be progressively at risk unless she is replaced. The understudy will not be sufficient, in this case, to appease me. And the second violin simply must go. You wouldn't want him to have some kind of accident that might impair his ability to torture a violin, would you?_

_Your obedient servant,_

_O.G."_

"Can you believe it, Andre?" Richard Firmin furiously asked his partner as he waved the letter around the manager's office. His fellow manager, Gilles Andre, sighed as he sank into a chair and brushed a hand over his eyes. He had not been sleeping well since this Opera Ghost character made an appearance. Then again, no one who worked at the Opera had been sleeping very peacefully of late. The whispers of a monster that haunted the theatre troubled everyone, even those who professed not to believe in the Phantom. "We won't stand for it!" Firmin cursed viciously. "This lunatic will get what he deserves, you mark my words, Andre! This is not the eighteenth century any more!" Andre tiredly looked up at his partner.

"The Phantom legends come from the nineteenth century, Firmin, not the eighteenth."

"Who cares when the damn story is from, Andre?" Firmin snapped. "The fact remains that this man – for he is a man, not a ghost – is an unscrupulous bastard taking advantage of the changeover period here at the Opera to gain some fast money." Andre rubbed his eyes.

"That's not true. He was here before we were. Poligny said – "

"Poligny? Ha! When did he say that, before or after they dragged him away to the asylum?" Firmin jeered. "You're too easily frightened, Andre. Mark my words, this man will be exposed for the coward hiding behind the façade of a fiend, or I'm not Richard Firmin!"

At that moment, a ghostly laughter filled the office. It seemed to come from every surface, and as Andre shrank back in his chair, Firmin puffed out his chest and addressed the room at large. "Who are you? Who is there?" The laughter stopped. "Answer me, coward: who is there?"

"Richard Firmin!" the voice that had laughed triumphantly declared, imitating Firmin flawlessly. "I am Richard Firmin, and you, sir, are a coward hiding behind the façade of a fiend!" It continued to laugh.

Above their office, Artemis crouched in a tiny space designed for some unknown reason long ago, when the Opera House had been built. Leaving them to their squabbling and confusion, the tall man straightened his body and sauntered causally out of the tiny space he had been cramped in, and exited through a secret door. Not for the first time he wondered what kind of man designed and built an opera house with so many secret passages and hidden doors, not to mention the extensive cellars beneath the upper stories of the Opera House.

Whoever he was, Artemis was deeply appreciative of his effort. He knew the Opera House had been built by Charles Garnier, but surely it wasn't Garnier – a nice, normal fellow – who built so many different and confusing passages in the lower cellars, as though creating a maze for those who walked there? Not that he had any problems, of course. His sense of direction was perfect, his memory flawless. He had never forgotten anything in his life, and sometimes he was not sure whether those powers of recall were a blessing or a curse. There were things he longed more than life itself to forget: the horrors of the carnival, the shrieks, the stares, the whip…

He shook off the memories as though one might shake off cobwebs after trekking through a dusty staircase. The carnival was over. There was no more leering gypsies, no more fear, no more pain. He was a grown man, with his own home, and his own domain.

If only he could remember that when the nightmares came…

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Please review. :)


	4. Chapter Three: Elf In The Opera House

OK, I'll admit it… I caved! I meant to keep the plotline for this completely Leroux and Kay based, but 'Music of the Night' snuck in there somehow. I can't help it! It's such an amazing song!

Thanks to winged-silhouette, Buchworm13, and PARTYB0Y for their reviews. :)

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Artemis Fowl, as Eoin Colfer owns Artemis Fowl. I do not own the Phantom of the Opera, as Gaston Leroux, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Susan Kay, etc. own Phantom of the Opera. What part of my non-ownership isn't clear here?

* * *

**_Chapter Three: Elf In The Opera House_**

The next day, Captain Holly Short briefed her commander on her activities for that day.

"I'm attending the Opera tonight, Commander," she dutifully reported. "There is significant evidence that the subject often goes there," she added, suddenly worried he thought she was frittering away her time. "I'm hoping that if I attend disguised as an opera goer I can case out the area, get a few indicators of his behaviour – "

"Have fun, Short," the commander barked, cutting her off. "What do you want, pony boy?" he snapped to someone jumping around outside the tiny communicator screen.

"Is it Holly? Is it Holly? Lemme talk, Julius!" the centaur exclaimed, grabbing the communicator from his boss.

"Don't call me Julius," the commander growled, but the centaur was too excited to care.

"Hey, Holly, how is it are you having fun did you go see the Eiffel Tower yet?" he said in one breath. Holly smiled, aware he had consumed far too much caffeine for one centaur. Someone had stolen his carrots, by the sounds of it, and he was forced to revert to caffeine. She pitied the commander. Putting up with Foaly when he was like this would try the patience of a saint, and Commander Root certainly didn't have that kind of patience. In fact, Holly sometimes doubted the commander had any kind of patience at all.

"Hello Foaly, its fine here, I am not having fun because this is work, not a social visit, and I haven't been to the Eiffel Tower." The centaur pouted. "Put the commander back on, Foaly, there's a good mule," she joked lightly.

"Hey!"

"Report back tomorrow, Short," the commander snapped crisply. "Root out." Holly sighed, missing home just a little bit, and went into the bathroom to shower and dress.

_xx_

The city of Paris was an interesting place to be for an elf with somewhat limited experience with Mud People. It was unnerving to be among so many Mud People, but she was discovering that they were a very self absorbed race, these humans, and rarely noticed anything outside of their own little world as they rushed to work or school or just around in general.

For a while she twitched at all the motion and the _people_, rushing around the streets of the city as though they all had to get somewhere faster than one another. She had thought Haven was busy, but this place made Haven seem like a tiny, idyllic village. She had still not accustomed herself to the pollution of so many primitive human vehicles, as she had confessed to the commander that morning when making her report. He had made a grunt which she assumed was a sound of sympathy for her plight, adding, "Sure you'll get used to it, Short," with customary gruffness. Holly sighed. She could almost see him as a father… but he was so different from her own. Oak Short had been faraway and pensive, but an excellent officer regardless. He had been capable of putting that aside whenever he went to work though not, Holly knew, at home. Root, though, was in a category of his own. Gruff and brusque, he cared for his officers in a fierce yet abrupt and almost curt manner.

Sometimes, she wished he had been her father. At least if he had been then she would have had a parent who didn't fill her head with fairytales and stories about angels that never appeared. At least he wouldn't have set her up for so much disappointment when those angels didn't arrive.

As she stepped into the Paris Opera House, she felt the old memories come rushing back to her. All those moments with her father that she had forgotten about, brought back by that glorious old memory of the night she had came here with her parents, that last wonderful occasion of childish ignorance of the cruelties of the world. She no longer wished that Root had been her father. She only wished that her own were still alive.

The Opera House was exquisite. For what seemed like the thousandth time Holly mentally thanked the commander for this assignment. It was even a thrill to be out from deep underneath the earth to the surface of the planet, even if she had to avoid the sunlight most of the time, and try to avoid the notice of people who might be curious at the sight of a tiny person wandering around.

She had dressed for her first night at the Opera House like she had never dressed before. There was little she could do with her auburn hair other than keep it clean, since she had had it cropped again before leaving Haven. Her dress, on the other hand, was a sheath of black silk that highlighted every curve of her very small body. Her heels were stilettos, and as she strapped them on in her hotel room rented by the LEP she thanked the gods that she had practised with these before it came time to put the damned medieval torture devices on. Still, she needed to fit the part of an operagoer, even if she was frighteningly small. The stilettos went towards fixing that, though. She wore a little black hat down over her ears, despite the odd looks it got her occasionally for wearing her hat inside.

Her first night at the Opera was like coming home after years of travelling. When the familiar beginning notes of _La Traviata_ swelled, Holly's eyes welled. It was as though the pressure that had been building within her all her life suddenly burst and she was lost, caught in the inevitable flow of music that swept all the difficulties in her life out of her.

The prima donna was… interesting. Oh, she supposed she was not too terrible, vocally, but it was obvious even from Holly's seat (which was not very close to the stage; she had great difficulty seeing) that the woman had a great deal of concealing makeup squashed onto her face, and her voice left much to be desired. But Holly supposed she was no critic, as she couldn't sing at all. Her father had thought her little voice lovely when she was younger, but like many things he had said, Holly took this with a grain of salt. Or a handful of it.

About three quarters of the way through the performance, though, something strange occurred. Holly had made a mental note to check whether it was the fault of the criminal she was pursuing, but soon gave up that idea. There was no way the petty thief she was tracing could have made that kind of sound. A maniacal laughter had spread throughout the Opera House, making it impossible to hear the singing as the laughter reverberated off of the walls. The chandelier had shaken and the lights had flickered.

It was all over as quickly as it began, but Holly appeared to be the only one unshaken by this. The audience was unsettled, the manager furious, and the performers and stagehands downright terrified. Raising her opera glasses demurely, she noted the sweating forehead and panicky expression of the prima donna and the terrified, pale faces of the little ballet girls. _Interesting._

No one in the whole theatre really enjoyed the performance after that. There was an aura of fear hanging over the Opera House; everyone was too aware of what had just occurred. Holly was unable to recapture the feeling of joy she had felt before when experiencing the music; despite her unruffled countenance, the hackles were up on the back of her neck. The instincts the LEP had drummed into her were shrieking.

Something was watching.

Not only just watching her, but watching the entire Opera House, something that saw everything and saw it all with merciless, pitiless eyes.

_xx_

After the performance she had quickly tried to get out of there, aware of the looks she was getting. So this was what it was like, to be different among the humans? she thought bitterly. But there were a group of men who headed her off, blocked her with their bodies. She looked very far up, craning her neck to look the leader of them in the eye. "How can I help you, gentlemen?" she inquired. He smiled disarmingly at her.

"Please, won't you join me for a drink?" he asked. Holly feigned embarrassment, while all her instincts were shouting: _never drink alcohol with a Mud Man, never drink alcohol with a Mud Man!_

"Unfortunately, I have a prior engagement," she said gracefully. She turned to go, but a hand came down on her shoulder.

"Not so fast, little lady," he said, and suddenly his smile wasn't so disarming. It was more like that of a predator. Holly reacted without thinking. She punched him, painfully, in an area of the body she knew (from prior experience with male idiots) knocked men flat on their ass. She ran, running from the man and his friends who were chasing her. She ducked into the first room she came to, locking the door behind her, and listening to the rhythm of her heartbeat as it echoed the thump of their footsteps as they ran past.

"Damn," she cursed, taking a good look at her surroundings. She was in a dusty, disused dressing room. At least, that was what she thought it was. Walking over to the dressing table, she brushed the dust away with a yellowed cloth that had been flung over a chair. The dust revealed rich, dark wood, flawless save for the lingering dust and tiny letters carved towards the top left hand corner.

C.D. 1880.

"C.D.," she said aloud. _I wonder who he was? Or she, I suppose. Probably a she, if she had a dressing room like this_. She picked up a scrap of sheet music that the dust had uncovered. "Music… of… the Night…" she said, straining to read the old script in the darkness. "From… Erik… for Christine."

Holly was suddenly struck by her own silliness. She was standing, in the dark, attempting to sing a no doubt complicated piece of music that looked to be a century old. Still, why not? she asked herself with a hint of impatience. It wasn't like anyone would hear her…

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Please review!


	5. Chapter Four: The Makings Of A Disaster

Hello again, everyone. And now, the moment you've all been waiting for: Holly and Artemis meet! Apologies if Holly seems OOC; then again, how calm would you be if confronted by a person like Artemis? Thanks to AgiVega and Buchworm13 for their reviews. :)

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Artemis Fowl, as Eoin Colfer owns Artemis Fowl. I do not own the Phantom of the Opera, as Gaston Leroux, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Susan Kay, etc. own Phantom of the Opera. What part of my non-ownership isn't clear here?

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_**Chapter Four: The Makings Of A Disaster**_

Oh, by God, he had never truly lived until that moment.

All the lust and agony of Don Juan Triumphant had all been for naught, compared to this.

The world had shifted. Everything Artemis had known or believed before this evening had been ended. There was nothing but a new beginning for him now, and he was afraid of it. Afraid of her.

They had not been able to find a suitable replacement for Carlotta. They had feared him – well, Andre had feared his anger, but Firmin had feared the absence of a great deal of money that would have been lost had they been forced to refund all of the tickets. So the performance had continued as planned, but not only had they included Carlotta in it, the second violin remained, slaughtering the perfectly good instrument, _and they had given away his box_. Box Five was for him and him alone, and they gave it away. Obviously, this could not be borne by any sane Opera Ghost… or even an insane one, for that matter.

But then he had seen her.

He had looked down from the very top of the catwalks, projecting his voice all around the auditorium, and there she had been, sitting amidst the chaos he had created with her face still. She was not bothered by the interruption, a little annoyed, perhaps. But not afraid. Artemis had seen her before during the performance, weeping at the beauty of the opera as it had played out before her eyes. Her love of the music had been reflected in the tears steadily streaming from her eyes. How often had he wept at music as she did, he wondered, how many times had he been reduced to tears at the same wonder that she had marvelled at?

She loved the music. And she was not afraid of him. She was a miracle; she was exquisite; she could not possibly be real. She was a living goddess in the form of a tiny, beautiful woman. Artemis had been affected by beauty before – being as hideous as he was, he appreciated loveliness in all its forms – but he had never seen his own love of music reflected in the eyes of another. He had not even dreamed it was possible, that anyone else could be affected by the loveliness of the music as he was. He had been alone for his whole life, after all, singular and separate from the human race. This woman, with her massive hazel eyes and lithe little body, could not possibly be human.

She was like him. She was different. Those plebeians down there could never understand her; understand the iridescent power of her warm eyes and the strength in the way she held her body upright, always on guard.

Artemis had not realised he had stopped laughing until her gaze once again fixed upon the stage; the show would, as inevitably as always, go on, and yet her lips were puckered with dismay and there was a frown upon her forehead. She could no longer capture the joy she had felt before. Was it because of him? Artemis frowned, the skin on his brow crinkling beneath the mask. Had he ruined this for her? Surely not.

He had been distracted, preoccupied, until the end of the performance. He was content to worship her from afar. He never needed to speak to her, hear her voice. The memory of her was more than enough to sustain him. At least, until he saw the men gather around her. She had not invited it; she tried to get rid of them nicely, but when they did not leave her alone she hit one in a painful area and while his friends gathered around him, took to her heels. He followed, sticking to the abandoned corridors and watched as they disappeared into the distance.

Ah, well. She was just a woman, just a beautiful woman, and he had seen plenty of those before. Even if she did meet him, she would just run away screaming. The hideousness of his face – and even the wretchedness of his body – would terrify her beyond all reasoning. Artemis suddenly could not bear the thought of that pretty face twisted in horror, did not want to envision her smiling cheeks go bloodless with fright. There were enough screams in his head without hers adding to them.

With a slight sigh, he turned to go. Striding down the passageways that only he knew, trying not to scurry down them like a rat, he passed along the one that led to the abandoned dressing room and stopped. He heard… something, but he did not know what. It was frighteningly beautiful, almost celestial, but he could tell there was so much work to be done on it. Why, if he could shape that voice, it would be one to match his own… but who was it? There was no one of that tone and clarity in the Opera, he would have heard them before. Perhaps it was just a hallucination brought on by stress. Certainly the managers would be enough to worry even the sanest of men, which he was definitely not. And yet… he looked down the passageway that led to his home. The darkness was calm and inviting, but the voice was so compelling, like that of some celestial being.

With a curious feeling as though he would live to regret it, Artemis set off in search of the voice. He arrived at the abandoned dressing room, peering through the massive pane of glass he knew appeared to be set in the wall as a mirror. What no one but he knew was that from one side – his side – it was a window and from the other it was a mirror. Oh, and it moved – swung forward. When he looked through it, he felt as though a lightning bolt had struck him, cleaving him into shards of himself that would only reassemble if he felt her touch on his skin.

It was her.

The beautiful woman, the tiny one, the one who had run away from those men who had wanted to do God knows what to her and who had evidently stumbled upon the abandoned dressing room. She was paler than before, clutching a sheet of aged music, tiny particles of dust surrounding her head like a halo. And she was singing, tentatively, carefully, as though she was not sure of the tune, or as though she thought that to raise her voice too loudly would shatter the illusion surrounding her.

_Slowly, gently,_

_night unfurls its splendour…_

_Grasp it, sense it,_

_tremulous and tender…_

_Turn your face away_

_from the garish light of day_

_turn your thoughts away_

_from cold unfeeling light_

_and listen to_

_the music of the night…_

She glowed. She was alight with the joy the music was giving her, and Artemis could only imagine how glorious she would be on a stage, in front as many people as Firmin and Andre could pack into the Opera House, triumphing over the world. And he would be the one to shape her. He would be the one who would show her how to use the genius in her throat, he would be the one that would give her to the world and she would reveal the beauty he could see in her to the world.

And she was so joyous, she was revelling in the beauty of what she was creating. He had never heard what she was singing before but then again, neither had she. He had forgotten how to be so lit up with joy at music, as she was. She had let go of the emotional veil he saw on so many other people and her happiness shone out of her eyes. He had to have that happiness, consume it, and drag it down into himself until the heat of that delight warmed his cold heart and cold bones from the inside out. She would be the one to redeem him, take away all the old hurts and the old agonies he still could not find the strength to weep over and she would heal the fragments of his soul.

"What is your name, child?" Artemis cut off her song in the middle of a note, mourning the loss of her voice, but intent upon her answer. He projected his voice to her, making it gentle and compelling – the voice that could make people do anything. Her reaction to his voice was instantaneous, her head whipping this way and that.

"Who are you? Where are you?"

"Shh," he soothed. "I am here because of your voice." Her eyes went wide, and her lips parted – her lovely, Cupid's bow lips, he wanted to take her and kiss her there – but no! no! what was he thinking, he didn't want to kiss her, he wanted to teach her!

"Are you the Angel of Music?" she asked, her own voice trembling in the dusty air. The Voice laughed, and it seemed an angel should not laugh like that, with that wicked note of irony. The Angel of Music, indeed. Well, he had been the Angel of Death for many men. Why could he not be the Angel of Music for her?

"Yes, my child, and I have answered your prayers." His voice was compelling; it ordered her to obey. Her eyes went even wider.

"He said you would come," she murmured breathlessly. "I didn't believe, because for so many years you didn't come, but he was right!" Her voice dropped. "Will you tell my father I am sorry for doubting him?"

"Yes, my child. I will tell him. What is your name?" Artemis asked gently, standing behind the mirror and drinking in the sight of her.

"H-Holly." Holly. It was beautiful, he thought. She matched it.

"I am here to teach you to sing, Holly. It is your father's wish that you succeed upon the stage of this Opera House." Her eyes, which had been steadily closing under the attraction of his voice, shot open.

"I can't!"

"Why not, Holly?" he boomed. "What is it that stops you from serving your master and fulfilling the wish of your father?" He watched as the tiny woman shrank down in on herself, already under his spell.

"I-I only have two weeks," she said. "My comma – my boss will be expecting me back." Artemis did not speak, instead contemplating. He had not expected that she did not live in Paris, that she was only here for a little while. Meanwhile, Holly grew frantic when he did not respond. "I could stretch it to four!" she said, panicking. "Please!"

Artemis sighed. Four weeks. It was hardly the amount of time he thought he would have. Months, he had thought they would have months together, for him to shape her into a masterpiece and for her to fall in love with him – no, he told himself, don't think of her that way. She is a singer and nothing more.

"Very well, Holly. Be here tomorrow evening at eight o'clock for your first lesson."

"But – "

"What?" he snapped, beginning to grow angry. He did not like the way she argued with him. She was supposed to be good and do as he said. This was not the way it was supposed to go. She was supposed to be in awe of him. Instead, she questioned his every decision!

"Perhaps-people-like-those-men-before-will-attack-me-again," she said all in one breath. He sighed.

"I will let no harm come to you," Artemis crooned. "They do not understand you, Holly. They do not understand your gift." His voice wound around her senses, drawing her in ever deeper. He knew her mind would be running through thousands of scenarios, imagining every possibility that could be causing the voice in her head… but from past experience with controlling people with his voice, he knew her heart believed only what his voice told her to.

He stood there long after she had left. He took off his mask and pressed his face against the mirror, letting the cool glass sooth his overheated skin. His heartbeat was too fast against his chest, clattering against his ribcage like there was a small bird inside, suffocating, thrashing in its death throes against the confines of his ribs that were its coffin.

She was perfect. And he was a monster. This charade could not be continued forever; he doubted it could be continued for long at all. Perhaps they would not last the four weeks. Although his voice had wrought its magic upon her, he could see that the fire of her personality would not be suppressed for long. Perhaps he would not even last a handful of days as her 'Angel of Music' without something happening between them that would cast doubt into her mind…

But he would not worry about that now.

He buried his head in his hands, hours later, deep beneath the Opera. The morphine kissed away the anguish in his head, leaving his thoughts crystal clear as he floated on an ocean of serenity. The way was becoming open to him. He would teach her and make her a star, and that would be enough for him. He could float out of her life as ethereally as the angel she believed him to be. For four weeks he would teach her, mould her, turn her into the star he knew she could be. That would be enough. After that there would be no more between them. He was content to leave it at that. But for the duration those four weeks…

He had to have her. She would be his. She could never be anything but his. No one would ever want her as much as he did.

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Please review.


	6. Chapter Five: Possession

Hello again, everyone! Thanks to everyone who read the last chapter, and extra thanks and red roses with black ribbons to my lovely reviewers: AgiVega and winged-silhouette.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Artemis Fowl, as Eoin Colfer owns Artemis Fowl. I do not own the Phantom of the Opera, as Gaston Leroux, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Susan Kay, etc. own Phantom of the Opera. What part of my non-ownership isn't clear here?

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_**Chapter Five: Possession**_

She had heard the Voice of the Angel of Music.

At the moment that celestial Voice had greeted her by name, a change had been wrought in Holly. She knew this; she could feel the change in herself. It was as though almost seventy years of cynicism and bitterness and anger at her father had all been stripped away. She existed again in the beatific, illusionary state of innocence her father had wanted her to remain in, like a perfect doll forever in suspended animation. Although her mind had not regressed – she was still the eighty-year-old LEP officer inside – she was infinitely more trusting, more willing to accept that the Angel of Music had come to her than she had been before. Her father had not lied, and she had been chosen to sing on the stage of the Opera House, just as she had dreamed as a child.

But it was insane! She accepted this, honestly and calmly contemplating whether she had lost her mind. She had heard the Voice of an angel inside of her head as clearly as she heard the voices of the couple in the next room in the hotel. Staring up at the plain white ceiling, endeavouring to find some equilibrium of her thoughts, she lay back on her bed and tried to put her mind in order. She had studied angels as part of the 'Christian faith and how it applies to the Mud Man mentality' course in college, and they didn't just randomly appear to people! And even if angels did exist, they wouldn't appear to an elf, an unbeliever!

But his Voice… surely no mortal or even magical being had such a Voice. She could not mistake it as the _mesmer_, it was something far more haunting and it terrified her and thrilled her in the same breath. She would be insane to return tomorrow, Holly decided as she undressed back in the relative safety of her hotel suite. But wouldn't the Angel find her if she did not return to him? Angels knew everything, after all. And his fury would be dreadful if he had to track her down; she had already seen that he was swift to anger and frightening when he did.

Wait, she said to herself. Angels know everything, don't they?_ So why did he have to ask my name?_

_xx_

She was insane, and she knew it, and she returned the next evening. At ten to eight she was waiting in the old dressing room, trying not to cough from the dust, not willing to risk angering the Angel by being late. Fervently she wondered why she was there, that it was not still too late to dash out of the dressing room and never return to that place where the insanity and the Angel were.

"Holly." His Voice sounded inside her mind, and she shuddered with pleasure and with fear. She was certain he must have heard or read her thoughts of betraying him, of fleeing from him, and so her hands trembled and her eyes darted all over the room, searching for an escape route in case his fury overwhelmed them both. "Holly. Calm yourself. I will not harm you." The Voice was soothing and gentle, but there was within it an undercurrent of power. When he spoke, he expected to be obeyed. With an effort she stilled her hands and focussed her eyes. "Well done, Holly." Something in her stirred at his praise, although she did not know what or why. "I have left you a gift. There, on the table."

She sifted through the sheet music, eyes widening. She had never seen so much music. Her father had shown her a little, back in the days when he used to get out his violin on special occasions, before the LEP took up so much of his time. "Thank you, Angel!"

She could hear the smile in the Angel's Voice. "You are welcome, Holly. I thought we might start on the first page…"

_xx_

And so it went on for a week, and then what was almost two. Each day Holly fell a little deeper into the thrall of the Angel of Music, and by the end of the first week she felt as though she could never live without him. The nights when he would speak to her inside her mind became what she lived for, and she often stayed with him well into the night. Indeed, she felt as though she rarely needed to respond to him out loud, that he would be able to understand her even if her answers were nonverbal. But he preferred to hear her voice, he had said, with such sweetness she had been completely won over.

He was like that, a constant quandary. Some days he would be tender and kind, not generous with his compliments but gentle in his relentless criticism, and she never wanted to leave him. And other times he would rage at her; his fury would be as dark as night. She could hear him still: _She was foolish, she was a useless child, that it was obvious she did not practise because she did not improve…_ She would sit, with tears dripping silently down her cheeks, and because he was the Angel, she was his willing slave, and he was always right.

When she was away from him her body physically hurt, as though someone had cut away something vital from her. She would stay with him until eleven or twelve at night, head home, and fall into bed and sleep, the deep damned sleep of the truly exhausted. He coaxed the sound out of her, made her produce the music from her throat by plucking her heartstrings like just another instrument he longed to master. She was always exhausted afterwards; he sapped the life right out of her with his powerful presence and his magnificent Voice.

And she worried, because she did not think he knew she was an elf, not a human, but that wasn't right, because angels knew everything, but angels didn't appear to elves or any other faerie, there had never been a faerie, elf or otherwise, that had met an angel… Holly was fairly certain she was going insane, and the worst part of it was, as long as she was with him, she didn't care.

She had made no headway in her search for the subject, and it was nearing the time when she would be forced to beg the commander for more time. She managed a grimace; despite the fact that the Voice was taking over her piece by piece, bits of her still remained the Holly she had been.

But they were fading fast.

_xx_

"What do you mean, you need another two weeks?" Root demanded over the communicator. He didn't like the look of Short. Her eyes looked slightly glazed and unless he was very much mistaken she had lost weight. The young officer attempted a brave smile.

"The subject has proved far more difficult than anticipated to apprehend," she rattled off, sounding for all the world like she had prepared a speech beforehand. Root frowned. Something was wrong here. "I will be done in two more weeks, Commander."

"Well, if you're sure, Short…" Root said, uncertain.

"Yes, sir."

"Fine, then. But if you haven't got the job done in two more weeks then I'm sending in reinforcements. Kelp's itching to go above ground, I might send him." Holly made a face.

"Kelp? That flyboy?" Root couldn't resist a chuckle.

"That 'flyboy' is of a higher rank than you, Short. I'd watch yourself if I were you." She joined him in his laughter.

"I'll keep that in mind. Thanks, Commander. See you in two weeks. Short out."

Holly closed her eyes and breathed out. The commander was so damn intuitive. She'd have to be careful, and put some real effort into finding that damn criminal before she blew her cover completely. Holly felt her eyes sliding closed. Oh, well, she decided. One more day can't hurt.

_She was in a room, a darkened room, and a man was staring down at her. She recoiled in horror. He had the face of a dead man, the features of a creature that had been rotting underneath the ground for a month or two. He had no nose, his eyes were deep black pits lit only by two pinpricks of gold light, and what little lips he had were bared back, teeth visible in a snarl. But he was not snarling, she realized… he was laughing._

_"**Why are you laughing?"** she asked fearfully, her mind ticking over at a rate she had not thought possible. His eyes were grim as he stared down at her, but that maniacal laughter was still continuing. He was laughing and yet he was so serious. This man was truly insane._

_"**I'm laughing at you, my dear… at your truly remarkable incompetence. You don't even know how to go about killing yourself with any efficiency, do you? What have you succeeded in doing except giving yourself a headache and ruining your dress? You're really not very practical, are you? Why didn't you consult me first? I would have been quite happy to give you the benefit of my considerable experience in death."**_

_Holly glanced down at her knotted hands, the skin pale as snow. Pale as… she gazed down at her arms in horror. Her usual nut-brown skin was the fairest Caucasian she had ever seen, and her body was far too long… she was a Mud Woman!_

_Oh, gods, she prayed, let this nightmare stop…_

"_**Don't talk like this,"**__ she whispered without being consciously aware of it. __**"Please, Erik. Don't talk about death and laugh like that… it frightens me." **__Holly hadn't realized the trembling, terrified voice she was hearing was her own until the man shrugged with indifference and responded, looking down at her like she was an interesting scientific specimen._

"_**Yes… I seem to remember how little it takes to frighten you, Christine."**__ Who the hell was Christine? __**"But you shouldn't be frightened of Death… he's very approachable really, not at all aloof, never passes by on the other side of the road simply because he's not been introduced."**__ Holly was conscious of a growing feeling of dread, as though some terrible climax was building and she had no way of stopping it. __**"He makes no distinctions of class… a flea bitten rats or a beautiful princess, it's all the same to Death!"**_

Holly awoke as though someone had poured cold water on her. She sat bolt upright on the bed, noticing the darkness of the room. It was night. She had slept the day through.

_The day through… oh!_

She turned to the alarm clock by the bed frantically. It was eight thirty. In the evening.

She moaned, a sound of pure torment, and rushed from the room.

_xx_

She flung herself into the dressing room at nearly nine o'clock. She heard nothing, but the air was like ice and she knew it had very little to do with the temperature.

"You're late." The Angel's Voice was like icicles dripping slowly down her spine and she shuddered, sinking to her knees before the mirror and trembling before him. Inexorably, the Angel continued. "Where have you been?" The sound she made was caught between a sob and a scream, but she could not speak. "With a lover?" The Angel's Voice was no longer angry or icy, but soft, comforting. It was a façade over the Voice's terrible wrath, she was sure, and she trembled, knowing that his calmness would not last if she displeased him.

"N-no, Master."

"LIAR!" the Voice screamed, so loudly she was certain the entire Opera House must have heard the terrifying screech of his rage. "YOU WERE WITH SOMEONE! WHO WERE YOU WITH?" Heat filled Holly's blood. Angel or not, her mother had taught her to stick up for herself when someone was being unfair to her… a lesson her father never managed to teach her while he was telling her fairytales.

"NO ONE!" she shrieked back at him, and it seemed the Angel was so shocked he did not say a word. "I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING!"

The Voice did not speak. Finally, he murmured. "You are certain?" Holly heaved a sigh.

"Yes. I was with no one." The Voice was quiet for a minute.

"I apologize, Holly. My… temper sometimes gets the better of me." Too shocked to even say a word to accept his apology, Holly merely nodded. "Sometimes I worry…" the Angel confided unexpectedly. "What you are doing out there, whether you are safe, if you are with someone…" He trailed off, seemingly lost in contemplation. "But you are here with me!" the Angel announced. "And you are safe with me and you shall stay with me! Shall we start your lesson?"

Holly nodded. There was little else she could do, for amongst the niggling of doubt in her mind there was a certainty that something about the Angel's mental state was beginning to disturb her.

As she sang, eyes blank and voice almost perfect, like a living doll making the music of an angel, she remembered her nightmare. She had lied to the Angel. She hadn't been with no one. She had not been alone. The dream was too overwhelmingly real and too utterly undeniable for her to shove it into the back of her mind like she did with so many other frightening thoughts. She has not been alone in her dreams. She had been with Erik and Christine.

But who were Erik and Christine?

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Please review.


	7. Chapter Six: The Contradiction Of Angels

Hello again, everyone! Immeasurable thanks and gratitude to the people that reviewed the last chapter: AgiVega, Buchworm13, and Bluesparks.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Artemis Fowl, as Eoin Colfer owns Artemis Fowl. I do not own the Phantom of the Opera, as Gaston Leroux, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Susan Kay, etc. own Phantom of the Opera. What part of my non-ownership isn't clear here?

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_**Chapter Six: The Contradiction Of Angels**_

By God, she had been terrified, but she had shouted at him.

She had every right to, of course. He was being cruel to his little student. Artemis knew he was a bad man, but he could not help but take perverse delight in her. What splendid spirit she possessed at times, a quality that made him all the fonder of his little student! And Artemis gloried in how disobedient she could be when she felt that she was right and he was wrong.

A state of uneasy truce had existed between them since he had lost his temper last week, and he was dismayed to notice than she no longer looked at him in quite the same way. He believed she found it difficult to believe an angel could lose his temper so ferociously and destructively, screaming and shouting and in general behaving like a complete idiot… as he had done. But there was something about her that makes him weak, something that made him so afraid he is going to lose her, whether it be romantically or not, to someone – a man, who has a human face instead of that of a monster.

He had made plans for her to appear on stage next week, but he had not told her yet. For some reason he was holding back on telling her. She had improved exponentially, beyond his wildest dreams, and once when she sang he was surprised to discover that she rivalled his own voice in her perfection. But it had only been three weeks! It seemed to him that it was almost supernatural for her to have improved this quickly, and yet… Certainly it was not God who gave her the skills she had mastered so easily! But she was perfect to him, all one hundred centimetres of her, perfect from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes, and he would still teach her even if she sounded like Carlotta when she sang.

At least, he thought he would.

He had managed to persuade the managers around to his way of thinking, although it came at a price, of sorts. _Most regretfully_, last Tuesday one of the stagehands had fallen to a tragic death on the stage, in the midst of the ballet rats as they had practised for _Faust_. He had heard later, eavesdropping on the managers as was his custom, that the man's brains were splattered about in a grotesque fashion, and some of the ballet girls were so traumatised they had not spoken since that and were the unfortunate victims of hideous nightmares at night. That same day a message had came to him from the worthy Madame Giry, his box keeper, that the managers were willing to do whatever he wanted, so long as no more tragedies would occur.

Artemis was very pleased with himself, but one element soured his triumph. The next morning he had seen Butler prowling around the front entrance looking rather predatory. He was not certain what his former bodyguard was doing at the Opera; the groceries were always brought through the Rue Scribe entrance. Still, he would not let anyone interfere with her triumph, even if that 'anyone' happened to be his faithful and former bodyguard. Holly was nearly ready to awe the world with the power of her voice, and he would let no one stand in his way – _her_ way. Artemis was conscious of the bridge between him and the other members of his species widening. He existed in a realm beyond the veil of humanity and as such, the common bonds of decency among humanity mean little to him.

_xx_

"No, Holly!" he snapped in exasperation for what felt like the twentieth time. "C, not C flat! Begin again!" His previous opinion of her outstanding success lay in ruins. The notes, which she had soared over yesterday with no qualms, were little more than stumbling blocks that she fell across today. He was enraged, almost ready to lose his barely reined in temper, but he managed to contain himself. He winced beneath his mask as another wrong note jarred through his ears and into his skull. "Holly! Again!" Wrong. "Again!" Wrong. "Again!" Wrong! "Again!"

"Damn it!" she snapped, breaking her singer's stance and flopping down on the divan. "Screw you and screw your singing! I can't do any more of this today!"

"You could do it yesterday!" Artemis snarled, his Voice becoming less powerful and otherworldly and more like that of an irritated, all too human male. "You have not been practising! How do you expect to improve if you do not practise?"

"I have been practising, goddamn you, and its not my fault you choose the most ridiculous songs for me to learn – "

"You have not been practising!" Artemis said to her, cutting her off in his best 'Angel of Music' tones. But, to his mingled disbelief and pleasure, his Voice had no effect on her. What a change, he reflected bitterly, from the shrinking child who had been prepared to do whatever he had said! And what a poor time for her to make that change! He decided to resort to alternate tactics. "How will you ever be prepared to sing on stage next week if you refuse to learn?" Her forehead, creased in lines of frustration and anger, smoothed in shock.

"Stage? Next week?" Her eyes were both achingly concerned and devastatingly hopeful.

"Next week. In _Faust_." Her Cupid's bow lips formed a silent 'O'. His heart ached. How he longed to take her in his arms, to kiss away those worries that lingered at the corners of his eyes. But, remembering his many fateful encounters with beautiful women who he wanted to kiss over the many years of his life – _oh, Luciana, why could you not leave well enough alone?_ – he clamped down on this desire. She would not run from him. She must learn to love him, but they were running out of time.

The lesson progressed much more smoothly after that. Holly seemed to concentrate less on what was going on inside her pretty head and more on what was happening in the outside world i.e. her lesson. Artemis leaned against the wall of the passageway behind the mirror, one long fingered musician's hand pressed against the glass as he watched her sing. She was luminescent, glowing with radiance, her dimpled little hands held loosely together, and he gazed down at his own hand introspectively, comparing the two. The fingers were long and delicate, musician's hands, artist's hands… murderer's hands. His skin was the colour of bleached bone from so long away from the sunshine.

Those hands did not belong on her coffee coloured skin, unnaturally pale against the warmth of her body. In his most sensible and levelheaded moments, which happened with alarming infrequency, Artemis knew this. But sometimes, caught up in the wretched desire for her that he could not suppress, he would imagine her softness against his own emaciated body. She would be soft, of course, like living silk underneath his hands. He could almost feel her skin; almost see her stretched out on the bed he had prepared for her in his home. Angrily, he tore his mind away from the images of her. She was pure, practically an angel. She did not deserve to be the object of his perverted lust.

Again, Artemis pondered his little student. He has long since known something was different about her, not least of all her height. Her differences attracted him to her – she was different, like him, but she was still beautiful regardless. Artemis… well, he was not. But she was tiny, so small; she could not have been more than a metre in height. He had seen women that small a long time ago, in the carnival he no longer spoke of, but she did not look like them. She looked for all the world like a very small fully formed woman, not strange to the aesthetic eye as those other women had been. And her ears were pointed… and sometimes in her large hazel eyes there was a gleam of feral blue, like sparks behind her eyes.

He did not dare ask her why. Her Angel would have known without being told, and so to continue the illusion of the Angel of Music, he had to pretend he knew, too. Even if the urge to know her secret was practically driving him mad, since he no longer believed she was truly human. And therein lay the reason for his fascination. He, too, could not identify himself as human, but where his differences had made flaws of him and make him terrifying, hers only enhanced her natural beauty. It wasn't fair, Artemis decided, but then again, little had been fair in his life. The contradiction between them was consuming him.

One small thing that disturbed him about her was her apparent instability, the way her mood could change so easily and fatally. Before her ire had been at its peak: driven to frustration by weeks of gruelling voice lessons and a stern and uncompromising maestro, she had spoken her mind. But as Artemis had mentioned her upcoming performance on stage, her anger had left her. She had become calm, introspective, ready to learn. He was well aware of a flaw in Holly, in the vulnerable expression in her eyes while she sang and the bitterness of her words whenever she spoke of her father. Inside of his pupil, he was certain, there was a damaged child that was still waiting for her father to save her. Any lover of hers would have to be prepared to be both the husband and the father, sheltering and protecting her from the outside world. She was a swan made of glass, perfect but for the crack running through her, as fine as a human hair but as obvious as blood on snow.

And that was another thing that worried him, something else that he could not quantify. She received so much attention from men, he was certain that one of them were bound to steal her away eventually Even if she did not see them or speak to them, they certainly saw her. He had grown tired of watching his beautiful little angel be ogled by men who cared nothing for the wonders of her personality. Regardless of her loveliness, she was more than just the curves of her lithe body and the prettiness of her physical form.

And in the way she turned her head from those lustful stares, he knew that something in her was crying out for someone to stop it, to claim her, to make all the terrible things go away. And Artemis knew he was up to the task.

It was time, he thought, that he made her his.

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Please review. :)


	8. Chapter Seven: Means To An End

Hello again, everyone!

I'm so sorry I haven't updated in ages – life caught up with me and I completely lost track of time. Thank you to everyone who reviewed and put me on their author alert.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own either of the fandoms I am quite happily mutilating. Artemis Fowl belongs to Eoin Colfer and the Phantom of the Opera belongs to… well, quite a few people, actually… oh, never mind.

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**_Chapter Seven: Means To An End_**

"Tomorrow you will perform in front of all of Paris," the Voice announced as Holly put on her coat after her lesson several days later. She stopped dead in her tracks.

"What?" she stammered. "Tomorrow… night?" The Angel sighed, and she was positive that if he had a head, he would be shaking it in disbelief. She sighed. Sometimes she wished the Angel was a little more understanding and a hell of a lot less condescending.

"Yes, my child," he said. "Tomorrow night, you will give to men a little of the music of heaven." Holly frowned. It all sounded very vague and rather airy to her. Music of heaven? Wasn't that his job?

And how on earth would she explain this to the commander?

For the life of her, Holly could not remember how she had got into this situation. It had been such a simple operation; apprehend the suspect, maybe have a little fun, and come home. But everything had changed; she had been catapulted into an unreality she neither fully understood nor wanted to understand. And in this world she no longer recognized the Opera House had become something of a prison to her. The place she had once loved had become imbued with the Angel's presence, and no corner of it was safe from the mighty power of his all-seeing eyes. She was becoming aware that something was very wrong with the Angel; he was not as she had imagined he would be. He at times almost seemed to possess the characteristics and emotions of a mortal man, not a divine being; he was jealous of anyone else she mentioned, let alone expressed emotional interest in.

She knew she was free to leave, free to fly home and the Angel would never trouble her again, for he would not find her deep beneath the concealing earth. _Too close to hell for an angel, _she found herself thinking with grim humour. But she was too deep in his web now. She would never live with herself if she did not learn her own limits; if she did not stand on that stage and sing to the heavens, distilling every black emotion in her heart out through her voice. She would never live without that ethereal splendour of his Voice haunting her, echoing through the hollow chamber of her heart if she escaped now. The only option was to do as he asked, sing for him, giving him her soul on the stage like a sacrificial lamb before the flames.

She was so very afraid of him now. She was afraid of his immense power and skill but most of all, she was terrified of the changes he wrought upon her. When she was in his presence she trembled, entire body shaking as though her bones were pushing against one another like magnets repelling similar forces. She did not want to be near him, for the hideous beauty of his Voice sent shivers down into all the places that calm, rational Captain Short had had to forget about in order to reach her station in the LEP. And yet the dreams possessed and tormented her, nightmares of exquisite pain where his control over her was absolute and undiminished, and gods help her, she liked it. Every time she woke up with her heart pounding, the Angel's Voice in her ears, she loathed herself and loathed her own weakness. She feared she was going insane, because although she knew the dreams were just imaginary spectres of the night, this knowledge did not stop her pulse from beating a terrible and inexcusable rhythm in all the places she had never felt it before.

She wanted to see him, wanted to be in his presence… wanted to feel him with her. He already possessed her soul. What more could he take but her body?

She knew the Angel was waiting for her to respond, knew just as well that his patience was not without limit. She was once again grateful that he could not read her mind, her cheeks flushing at the thought of him knowing what she was thinking of.

"But… the prima donna," she protested weakly, striving for some kind of excuse as to why she should not sing. _It's all too fast, it's happening too quickly!_ She was aware that she was hurtling through life towards this inevitable climax, and she was afraid. "I'm sure La Carlotta will not fall ill over the next twenty-four hours, Angel." The Angel laughed, and Holly shivered.

"You'd be surprised, my dear, what can happen in such a brief period of time." The Angel's Voice was heavy with menace, and Holly wondered what he would do to the poor woman. Surely he wouldn't hurt her too terribly? "In fact, Holly, something already may have happened to her, and perhaps she is lying somewhere alone, trapped, injured…" The Voice's tone was one of malevolent glee at his own malicious genius.

Holly's blood turned to ice. She had no doubts that the Angel could easily carry out his threats if he so chose.

She no longer considered refusing to sing as an option.

_xx_

_"… in other news, the diva of the Paris Opera House was found in her apartment this evening, trapped underneath her grand piano. Carlotta Guidicelli has been the Opera's prima donna for the last six years, and this freak attack comes as a shock to all who knew her. Preliminary reports say that Ms. Guidicelli has broken both legs and has a severe concussion, and will be in hospital for the next few weeks…"_

Holly turned off the television, stricken. This was the Angel's work; she had no doubts about that. Her pointed ears were tingling, her instincts shrieking for her to listen. She had been blinded by old faiths and ancient hopes, and now her moments of childish belief had come back to haunt her. The Angel was not who he pretended to be, for this was not the work of an angel. This violent, agonising attack on an innocent woman was little more than the work of a madman.

She had returned from the Opera shaking, frightened for some unknown reason of the shadows around the corners. And now she knew. Now she knew the black depths of which the Angel was capable. He was no angelic guardian, no gift from God, no being sent from the heavens to draw her to exquisite heights with the sound of his Voice. He could not be an angel. No one who wreaked such remorseless havoc could be a being of beauty and light, and her pride burnt at the knowledge of his deception. How could she have been so deceived? He was a twisted monster who was giving her the voice of an angel for some unfathomable reason and would stop at nothing to get what he wanted.

She did not know how she knew this, but she did. She knew that she was in danger, that the Angel, in his possessive rage and jealousy, would destroy the world to have exactly what he wanted. And what he wanted was her; he was consuming her soul bit by bit, drawing her into the cage of his maddened genius, and she knew her mind and body would follow, as inevitably as the day follows the sun below the horizon. Lurking beneath the calm, polite, well-mannered Voice of the Angel was a demon, a monster whose unpredictable temper lurched out of him at random moments. He could not help it, he could not control it, but that was no excuse. They were moving towards a moment in time in which she could not anticipate, could not control, and only the Angel knew how the next act in his dread opera would play out.

Holly was strangely certain that she would not escape him alive.

_xx_

"Miss Short!" the managers greeted her jubilantly the next day. "Our new leading lady!" Holly was no fool. She saw the clamminess of their skin, the faint tremble to Andre's hands, the dark anger at the back of Firmin's eyes. Despite the forced joviality of their voices, the managers were as afraid and as trapped in the Angel's web as she was. Here were two more puppets of the Angel; he played them all like just another instrument he wished to conquer. Twitching a string here, tangling a cord there… he was a demon puppet master of the finest calibre, playing each and every one of them to perfection in his grand design. Holly felt the hackles stand up on the back of her neck.

He was watching. She could feel the Angel's eyes on her.

Over the course of that day, they went over and over paperwork together, the managers of the Opera and the diminutive woman who fixed them with a hazel glare that seemed occasionally tempered with pity. At long last they were all satisfied, the arrangements made, and the managers temporarily assuaged that this woman would not ruin them through a substandard voice. Holly herself was numb to all proceedings, and though she kept a blank and calm façade on show for the world, inside her mind was spinning. She would perform on the stage of the Opera tonight, and if the LEP caught her, all would be lost.

"One more thing," she said, leaning over the conference table to look the managers firmly in the eye. "I would prefer to remain unnamed." The two men traded glances. She suppressed a smile. Over the course of that day, she and the managers had reached something of an understanding, people forced together because of fate and the will of the Angel. She pitied them, because although she knew that at least she had some semblance of physical freedom from the demented Angel controlling the Opera, they had none. Their livelihoods and businesses were tied up in the Opera, and therein lay the Angel's control: they were desperate men, desperate puppets on the string of an even more desperate master.

"You don't want anyone know?" Firmin questioned, as though no one could possibly not desire enormous amounts of fame and wealth. Holly shook her head.

"It's kind of complicated," she sighed, aware of the managers' half-curious, half-contemptuous eyes on her.

"Complicated?" Firmin repeated, raising a sardonic eyebrow. Holly nearly snarled at him. "Is there something you're afraid of that we can help you with, Miss Short? Ghosts of your past, perhaps?" Holly glared at him, sympathy disappearing.

"Rest assured that it would be easier for all involved if I did not perform under my own name," she snapped.

"What would you prefer we bill you as?" Andre asked. "The public needs to be able to call you something."

Holly let her eyes close, thinking. Everything that had happened in the past few weeks moved through her brain at an astonishing speed, and she distilled all the knowledge of that time down to the valuable pieces of information. It was a trick the LEP academy taught, to dissemble everything down to the bare facts of a situation.

_I am the psuedo-prisoner of a demented madman. I am about to expose the People to the entire world by performing on stage. Commander Root is going to kill me, then revive me just to kill me all over again. I am doomed._

"La Christine." The sound of her own voice startled her, but when she opened her eyes, the managers were looking at one another in grim understanding, as though the name she had chosen meant something bleak and terrible to them. She did not know why, but eventually they nodded, albeit a trifle reluctantly.

"La Christine it is, Ms. Short," one finally said.

She left soon after that, shaking their hands with her own tiny palm, and the knowledge of what was to occur that evening zoomed through her.

She was going to sing.

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Please review.


	9. Chapter Eight: Trouble On The Horizon

Sorry for the delay, guys! Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed. Note: this chapter relies pretty heavily on Susan Kay's _Phantom_,_ w_hich is an absolutely awesome book. But there's a little bit of Leroux thrown in, too.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own either Artemis Fowl or the Phantom of the Opera. So leave me alone.

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_**Chapter Eight: Trouble On The Horizon**_

He wept.

It seemed as though the tears were drawn up from deep inside him, boiling their way up past the lingering agonies of the past and cleansing him from the inside out. He could not ever remember weeping as he did now, his hands clenched into futile fists, his mask abandoned on the dusty stone. His heart was full to bursting, hammering frantically against his ribs, and he pressed a hand to it, trying to calm his traitorous pulse. It would not do to have a heart attack now, of all times! Artemis wept, as he had not wept in so long, and his fingers longed to conduct the movement of her notes in the air. And yet he was motionless, as the tears coursed uninhibited over the skin he had so long believed to be that of a monster in the sweet cool darkness of the cellar beneath the stage.

For Holly was singing. He leaned back against the stone, willing his feet to keep their footing, forcing himself to remain upright in the face of the wrenching pain-pleasure that was the beauty of her voice. Holly sang, as she never had before in their rehearsals, and his eyes fell closed, his hands slackened. Because Holly was singing.

_And oh, how she sings!_

How could he possibly explain the sensations soaring through his body and mind, the effect she had on his rapidly firing neurons? He could not, for to even try to describe them in mere, human, fumbling words would be sacrosanct. Her voice was not meant to be described or tainted by human hands, beautiful in all its purity. Yet he had touched her voice, hadn't he, touched the inside of her soul, and changed her voice in some wicked alchemy from mere mortality to quicksilver and glory. He gasped in oxygen, inhaling with it her music. He could almost taste it on his tongue, a drug more addicting than the alcohol or the little sultana's hashish had ever been. Holly's voice was sunshine and thunder, and even as he cried for the beauty of her voice – lovely, shifting siren's song – he marvelled at the genius of his creation. That something so exquisite had come from him, from his tutelage!

The music swelled around him, a tangible presence that he could ignore. It bathed him in its warmth, in the light of her soul that poured from her throat. It was a form of alchemy, a miraculous transformation that, it seemed to him, was almost unfair, practically a violation of nature. Her voice reflected her beauty, but his own was just a mockery of his hideousness. But he could not dwell upon that now, not when the sweetness of her voice coloured the air he breathed. He breathed her beauty, her warmth, and Artemis realised in a moment of terrible actualisation that he could not bear to breathe mere air ever again. He closed his eyes, sank back against the wall, and as though summoned there by his will alone, he saw her in his mind's eye. He could not see her in person, for the managers had denied him his box yet again, but they could do nothing could destroy Artemis' ecstasy and – he smirked, deformed lips twisting even more – by God they could not take her out of his head.

But he had to see her. The memories were no longer enough. Even though he often felt as though her image had been tattooed to the backs of his eyelids when he was not paying attention, he could not go another minute. A sudden, sickening lurch passed through him; that this exquisite voice was just another twisted hallucination, the product of the morphine and the alcohol and the _grief_…

He had to see her. He had no choice in the matter. If he did not see her, Artemis thought he might die.

He was nearly incoherent with mingled desperation and delight as he made his way up to the flies, as his little student's angelic voice echoed all around him. He fumbled with his mask, somehow not caring about anyone who might see him. The Phantom, for the moment, was gone. All that remained of the monster he had been was Artemis; her voice and the torments washed the rest away.

And there she was.

No angel had ever been lovelier; no diva had ever held an audience more in thrall. Not a breath stirred the vast body of people that had crowded to see the prima donna who had upstaged Carlotta; the ethereal, otherworldly music of Holly's throat saw to that.

An alien emotion surged up his chest, warming him all the way through in a fashion that even Holly's music could not manage. He could not remember this feeling, not as long as he lived.

He thought it might be happiness. Or possibly love.

Artemis felt the tears threaten again.

She was his masterpiece. He could not live without her, not now.

And he would _never let her go._

_xx_

For a long time after the audience had climbed to its feet, screaming and cheering, and the final bow had been taken, Artemis stood above the stage. He watched dispassionately as his little student was surrounded by a throng of well wishers and fans. He could hardly see her among them, tiny as she was; yet his eyes never wavered from her. If he remembered he had wept real tears below the stage in the wake of Holly's voice, he gave no sign of it. It was no longer important.

And now he pondered what to do next. Should he take her below, to the realm of the night that he presided over? Tonight, would Persephone come to Hades? Artemis was disturbed to discover he had no answers to these questions: he, who had always known everything he had ever wanted to know, did not know. Holly was the one variable he found himself incapable of calculating. So for now he watched her, straining to understand what he barely comprehended, aching to come to a course of action and dreading it.

"Short!" a voice snapped, breaking through the throng and into Artemis' concentration. Artemis' eyes narrowed. The man who had called Holly's name so rudely was only a handful of centimetres taller than her, a bouquet of wilted flowers in one white-knuckled fist. Holly turned to respond to the shout and as she did Artemis saw, as if in slow motion, horror creep across her face. She started fighting her way through the crowd in earnest, struggling to get away from this unknown figure, but the man caught her by the arm. "Thank Frond, Holly, we've been so worried about you – "

"Sir, you are mistaken," she said, her eyes wide and desperate. "My name is not Holly." The stranger made a derisive sound.

"Come off it, Short, and come home. I don't know what the hell you think you're playing at up on that stage but Foaly's going out of his mind with worry and the Commander's – well, he's… stopped smoking, for Frond's sake!"

"Trouble!" she pleaded. "I can explain…" Something in her eyes must have given him pause, because he sighed, adjusting the hat that covered his hair and ears.

"I hope so, Short, because frankly, it's not looking good for you."

He shoved the flowers at her, and turned on his heel. Artemis was dismayed to see Holly's eyes follow him through the crowd until she could no longer see him. Artemis eyed the stranger resentfully. Respectably clad in a suit and a small hat on top of his head, he was, for his small size, a relatively good-looking man.

_At least he has a nose,_ Artemis mused bitterly. _And eyes that do not glow in the dark. And the face of a demon…_ These miserable thoughts did little to assuage his anger at the newcomer, or at Holly_. How dare she talk to him? _he thought furiously, conveniently forgetting in his misplaced rage that she had not looked happy to see the stranger at all. The Phantom had returned. Artemis built himself into a towering rage, and strode away from the scene, forgetting all about his student, who looked around with anguished eyes, as though seeing a world she suddenly did not recognise.

_xx_

He waited, pacing like a trapped panther, before the mirror for her to arrive back to her dressing room. He did not have to wait long. Holly nearly ran through the doors in her haste to get away from the masses that followed her. Artemis noted with displeasure her flushed face and mussed wig… as though someone had kissed those lovely cheeks, and rumpled the dark curls… He shook his head to clear it, but that did nothing to dispel the miasma of red that was creeping up around the corners of his vision. Murder, he recalled, was like an addiction, and even in his muddled and aggrieved state he sensed himself slipping off the wagon…

He watched, mute, as his student slipped into a chair, removed the wig, and dropped her head into her hands. He watched her profile in the dim light, noticing with a flicker of amusement her spiky auburn hair, rebelling against the gel that had immobilised it beneath the wig. His eyes drifted lower, past the defined shoulders and slender waist, to her hands… and he noticed, with a flash of fury, the wilted, ugly bunch of flowers she still held clutched in one hand. His blood boiled.

"I WILL NOT TOLERATE DISOBEDIENCE!" he roared, gaining a small amount of perverse satisfaction from the way her hazel eyes flew open at the sound of his voice. She prostrated herself at the foot of the mirror, and he was both pleased and dismayed to see the return of her former reverence. It was as though her triumph had shocked her into a belief of him even deeper than the blind faith of before.

She stammered apologies and excuses; he denied them. His voice was harsh and mighty, the dark power of an angered angel. He reduced her, from the proud and beautiful siren he had seen on that stage, to a sobbing, quivering heap that could barely string three words together without descending into sobs and mindless rambling of apologies. His heart ached. It was a necessary duty, but not one he enjoyed. Well, not one he enjoyed _much._

He quieted her with a few bars of music in his unearthly Voice. "Holly," he said, sinking to his knees next to her. Only the glass separated him from her; only the glass, and his face. "I am more proud of you than I could ever believe I would be of a mortal." Well, that was true enough. "The angels wept tonight." Also, in a twisted way, true. Would the lies ever end? "Your father is proud, my child." This ensured a fresh wave of tears.

"Oh, Angel," she sobbed. "This is all because of you." Artemis sighed, and his Voice was much more that of a defeated mortal man than that of an angelic being.

"I suppose it is." Holly lifted her eyes to the heavens in supplication.

"Please, won't you let me see you?" Artemis jerked back in shock, away from the mirror and away from her. Holly, realising her mistake, blundered on. "I mean – I just want to – "

"Enough!" Artemis shouted. There was no grace in his Voice now, only power. Behind the mirror, though, he reeled in shock. He had not been prepared for this. "Is it not enough that I grant you the gift of music?" he thundered. Holly shrank away from his rage, the tears flowing anew. "What the Lord gives, He may also take away. Remember that, and think upon your sins. Remember that…" His Voice trailed away. He was suddenly tired, mortally tired, exhausted down to his bones.

"Angel?" Holly asked hesitantly. "Angel?"

He did not respond, and when he did not, she cast herself down to the floor, sobbing. Artemis did not make a sound, but his heart throbbed with pain at the sight of her. _This was necessary_, he reminded himself. _She must learn to be content with what I can give her_. But there was no feeling of triumph as he regarded her, a miserable, shaking mess at the base of the mirror. He gained no satisfaction from reminding her who she belonged to. And the sight of her like this, brought low with grief, only recalled to his mind so many other innocents like her, whom he had slain.

And it was because of that final thought that he walked away from her as quickly as he could, but even as he ran, her cries followed him below.


	10. Chapter Nine: At Last

Hi, everyone! I'm so sorry this took so long, but rest assured, I haven't abandoned this story. The world away from fan fiction (horrible place that it is) caught up with me for a bit... But here it is!

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Phantom of the Opera (Gaston Leroux), Phantom (Susan Kay), or Artemis Fowl (Eoin Colfer). Anyone who says I does should stop reading my diary. :)

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_**Chapter Nine: At Last**_

She was a shell.

The Angel had taken her soul with him when he had abandoned her, and now she waited, voice lovely but hollow, singing when told to but manacled by grief. It was as though the centre of the world had collapsed, leaving a gaping void where once the not-quite-comforting hum of the Angel's presence had been. She had forgotten, for one bright moment, that the Angel was a temperamental and strange creature, and that behind the veil of his divinity was not a man, but something more. She had forgotten that the Angel tolerated no disobedience, no deviation, and absolutely no doubt.

She had forgotten. And now she was paying the price.

She woke the day after the performance to a storm. The media had all gone mad for her, mad for the petite diva with the golden throat and the elusive, mysterious ways. And even as she knew she would have to perform again, her heart rebelled against returning to the Opera. To the Angel. To the Angel, and his madness and his anger and his wretched, wicked control over her. But not to return was far more terrifying, the alternative by far the most dreadful. Because for her not to return was to incite his anger further, true, but also to disappoint him, to throw back in the unseen face of her erstwhile maestro all his hours of tutelage and encouragement. And she couldn't not know. She was so completely his, body and voice, and she was a shell without the Voice's sanction, the Angel's blessing. But she would sing regardless.

Of course she would. It was what he had moulded her for, the task she had been programmed to complete.

And let the LEP come. She had the strangest feeling that after tonight there was nothing more for her to do. Holly had been reduced to a spectator in her own life, someone mindlessly viewing events instead of making them react to her choices.

This was not the person she had wanted to be. This was not the way her life was meant to go.

Oh but the Angel let her sing. Surely that was enough?

_xx_

The performers, the stage hands, even the managers... they all parted before her that day, as though to stand in her presence was both an oddity and something too marvelous to be countenanced. Rehearsals ran as smoothly as they ever did, with only a handful of minor hiccups to reassure the most superstitious that all would go to plan at the performance proper.

And the day had flown by before she had a chance to even think about it, and suddenly it was the evening and she was dressed and combed and made up for the opera. In the mirror of her dressing table at the Opera her eyes were red with sleeplessness and unshed tears, throat locked up with the terrible silence where once angels had sang to her.

How could she go on like this? she asked silently of the empty air. How could she sing when her very being strained to be closer to him, to hear his divine voice call to her in the exquisite night-music she had come to need like oxygen?

"You left me," she finally murmured, perfectly wretched. Her words echoed back to her, bouncing against the walls of the empty room. It did not sound like her; flat and lifeless. But there was no response. How could there be? The Angel had left her. "I wish you'd come back."

And for a moment, just a moment, there was an undercurrent of something more in the room, and she sat up straight, eyes questing for something she had no hope of seeing. And her name, barely a breath, barely a sigh, just a whisper on the breeze that flowed from the open window; but it was enough to catch the breath in her throat.

"Holly," whispered the Voice, altogether too close, too real. "I have forgiven you."

It was as though her heart remembered how to beat.

_xx_

And so she sang, the celestial voice he had shaped pouring from her throat, completely altered now she knew again the Voice was with her.

The audience tonight were quiet; awestruck, she knew, and she could understand their feelings. They were hearing the Angel's spirt woven into her voice, and it was enough to make even her weak at the knees; the knowledge that her body and throat were enough to let the world hear the glory of a creature such as the Angel.

But. Oh, but,

Part of her was angry - furious, even, but most of her was merely resigned. If it was any other officer, she was sure, they would not have sent a full team to retrieve her. But she was Holly Short, "Captain" Holly Short, and there were more hopes and expectations riding on her than she could ever have wished for. She was the first female captain of the LEP in the history of the force; she could not be corrupted, for the sake of the generations of girls and women waiting behind her to take their place someday as officers of the Lower Elements. Yet the shift in her life, of learning to sing and learning of the Angel - she could no longer be sure of what she wanted. She had never intended it, but now, she was certain, in their eyes she was corrupted.

She could sense them; they were coming. Her kindred were making good on their promise to come and find her, and facing the music - no pun intended - would not be pretty once she arrived below ground again. The delicate shimmers making their way up the aisles were visible only to her and a few sharp eyed, disinterested humans. And even as she sang, voice heavenly enough to affect even the approaching LEP operatives, she cast her eyes around desperately for the Angel, expecting him against her own mind's better judgement.

But there. Was that a halo she could see, bright against the darkness. Were those black, sweeping wings, or merely shadows? She sang, voice continuing against her will, and she could not move from her place on the stage. It was not the Voice's will, after all.

And then the world erupted.

A man fell from the flies, face swollen and blue, a cord around his throat bobbing him up and down like a grotesque puppet. She did not scream; it was not the first time she had seen a hanging, and certainly not the first time she has seen a dead body. But it was undoubtedly the first time incidence of a corpse dropping down nearly on top of her, and she cannot restrain a small gasp of chorus girls screamed in tandem, their usually crystal voices a cacophany of broken glass and screeching metal.

Everywhere she looked people were surging, screaming, moving towards the exits in the fractured, jerky movements of panic and hysteria. She saw the not-shapes that were the LEP as they rose into the air, and she could almost hear the words 'mission aborted' with the ears of her professional memory.

But the hand on her arm was no memory, a vice closing around her bicep to drag her away from the throng as the lights flicker out. She could not fight the dark, shapeless form that dragged her away from the mass of terrified people, free only to stumble as her feet tried to keep up with the pace of the stranger.

She was wrenched through a nondescript door, and she fought him all the way. Her assailant was tall, and slender, and he (she?) pulled her along as though she was nothing but a rag doll, down flights of stairs and along corridors. Her feet barely touched the ground as she was dragged behind the stranger as though she weighed nothing at all. But beneath the black clothes power lurked like a coiled spring, and Holly was well aware that this strange creature was no one to be trifled with.

Slamming her fist as hard as elfinly possible into the man's stomach - she had decided he must be a man, from his height and strength and demanding attitude - she watched with no little pleasure as he crumpled. She darted away, back the way she had been brought, but the darkness was impervious even to elf eyes and as she picked her way up the dank stairs, she was conscious of the footfalls behind her.

The hands caught her again, and she swung, ready to face her attacker and do battle in any way necessary. But she was in no way prepared to meet the eyes of her assailant; they incapacitated the very spirit, frighteningly bright and searing down into her, as though he could see into her heart.

It was a man, and his eyes blazed an unholy blue through the darkness, the rest of his features obscured by the black mask she could barely distinguish from the night. The eyes were all she could look at, electric blue and they seemed to be almost crackling with impatience and anger as he puller her now unresisting body along with him. He was tall, even by mortal and not fairy standards, and he ushered her around corners and down corridors with the experience of someone at home only within the night.

"Please," she whispered, her voice faltering and weak in the darkness that surrounded them. Those eyes turned from their ceaseless examination of the shadows to fix upon her. She swallowed, gathering her wits. For the love of Frond, she was a LEP officer, not a cringing, terrified girl. She could take down any mere Mud Man, regardless of the dark and her fear and his bright, madman's eyes. "I don't know who you are and what you want, but if you don't let me go - "

The stranger sighed, the exhalation rattling out through his throat with a sigh. It spurred her on, his sigh, as though he was the wronged one.

"Now see here, Mud Creature, I don't know who the hell you think you are but if you think for one damn second - !"

"Silence," interrupted the Voice. For a moment, she thought she had hallucinated it, or that the Angel had come to her in her hour of need. But that hope slowly fell away. The stranger had stopped, was looking down at her, and it had been from his obscured lips that those words had fallen from.

"Angel?" she gasped, mind going blank, eyes flying wide. her brain could not compute this new information, that her immortal Voice, that had soothed her and comforted her - he was the Voice. The Angel was a man. Oh, she had suspected, of course, but the reality struck her with the force of an anvil falling from the sky.

"I am no Angel, Holly," the man said, his words still in that lovely, ethereal murmur. But for the first time, she noted, his voice was drenched in a soft, lilting accent.

The Angel was Irish. The thought made her smile for a moment, her lips twisting into an expression of amusement that quickly crumpled into other, nameless emotions. Her shoulders shook with the cold and the fear and the discovery, and the events of the past few weeks and that night caught up with her.

Her head spun. Her eyes blurred. And through all of this, she was suddenly, painfully aware that she had not completed the Ritual in months.

The stranger reached out, gripping her shoulders in strong hands. "Holly? What is it?" he asked, voice low and urgent. He was careful not to touch her skin, but she couldn't stand his hands upon her. With her last vestiges of strength, she pushed him away.

"Don't touch me," she gasped out. And then even the darkness went black.


	11. Chapter Ten: Exposure

Hello all! Thank you to all the lovely people who read and reviewed the last chapter; you made my day. (Week...) I do apologise this chapter took so long (again), but for some reason every time I tried to write this chapter, Artemis and Holly ended up hugging / holding hands / kissing / having sex, etc. *shakes head sadly* Blame my dirty mind. Thankfully, I found an odd sort of inspiration in the new Love Never Dies album (Phantom "sequel"), which disturbed me on several levels because despite the usual, glorious ALW music, the plot was a shambles and the characters so OOC it seemed like a fanfic on a bad acid trip. Ah, well. The official song for this chapter is "Beauty Underneath" which, despite being a song from the Phantom to his (cough spoilers cough) son, sounds more like an attempt at seduction. The link is http:/ www. youtube. com/ watch?vJCwUjurUM. Minus spaces.

**Disclaimer:** Not. Mine. I can't be clearer that that.

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**_Chapter Ten: Exposure_**

He held her unresisting body in his arms, the steady rhythm of her heart and the frantic beat of his own the only noise in the darkness. He was not surprised she had fainted; indeed, rather relieved. The pleasant pressure of her slender body against him was the kind of glory his infrequent good dreams were made of, a liberty he was sure she would never allow him to take in her waking hours. And yet here, in the dark, in his realm, she could be his. She would be his.

He had not set out to take her tonight, oh no, not at all. He had been enjoying the glory of her performance when he had first seen them, those small people swarming throughout his theatre. They had been shielded from human sight, but he was no ordinary man, and after that first flutter of shock, he had been prepared for them.

With a roar he had dropped down onto the stage from the flies and snatched her, taken her from grabbing, twisting, clawing mortal hands with all the ease of a child plucking berries. And he had spirited her away deep into his underworld world, his darling, his little angel. Standing with her collapsed against him, on a slimy stairwell under countless tons of dirt and building combined, Artemis felt an undeniable sense of triumph.

He had not expected the punch though; that had surprised him, and he recalled it with a soft chuckle. His little angel had spirit; her soul was a thing of fire, and he could not help but reflect again how suited they were; how she would melt the frozen heart of him that had built up over so long. His mind drifted as he continued the long trek to his home, wandering over a hundred different subjects but savouring, always savouring, the light and warm presence of Holly folded up in his arms.

Lying her down in the Louis-Philippe room, his hands ached as they pulled away from her form. His skin burned with the old hunger, his eyes stroking a path down her petite body. How easy it would be, to touch her while she slept. To slip off his gloves and drag his dead hands over her living body. He stood over her still body, towering over the bed and gazing at her with an almost analytical expression beneath the mask. His calculating mind soared over the possibilities, racing to the cabinet to the bedroom of medication, to the sleeping drugs he needed like an addiction to rest his ever-active mind.

How easy it would be... a needle prick here, a drop of blood there, and she would be comatose and unresisting, for as long as he wanted her...

"No," he growled into the empty room. "No." And he fled before his body could betray his heart.

For hours, the music soothed away the ache, collapsed it down to black-hole density and hid it deep inside him, in the part of his mind where so many other black memories resided. He thought the thundering chords and violent melodies would wake her from her fear-induced slumber, but no patter of feet interrupted the music, no sounds other than those he himself created disturbed the still. But in the end he was drawn back to her, to watch over her from the doorway. His previous euphoria was fading, to be replaced with growing dread and fear. What if she was afraid? What if she did not want him? What if -

On the bed she stirred, one small hand rising to rub at her eyes. The large and cumbersome gown she had worn for the Opera floated around her; she was an island in the mist. The anxiety rose in his throat and hovered around his heart; it seemed a vice, crushing and closing.

He was clad in shadow and her eyes were heavy with sleep; she could not see him in the dark. For a moment he thought about running, so far and so fast he would wipe himself from existence.

But he wanted her. Oh, how he wanted.

Heart hammering in trepidation, he stepped into the room. Her eyes snapped to him in a second. He almost felt her eyes, suddenly calculating, skim over his face (well, mask), take in his elegant clothes and skeletal frame, and then the opulent, over-furnished bedroom she now found herself in. And then the veil dropped back over her eyes.

"Where... who are you?" she asked, evidently deciding to go with the most obvious question. He could feel her curious eyes wandering over the mask. He nearly smiled at her voice, so soft and trembling. His dear little Holly. His, to protect. Indeed, he would have smiled, had he not been so afraid, terrified of what she might say.

"I am Artemis," he finally said, uncertain, evasive. "Holly, I am the Ghost. All I have is yours."

She looked at him in disbelief, her lovely eyes wide and shocked. He cringed at the hysterics that would undoubtedly follow. He had been wrong to admit what he was, to state so bluntly the nature of his role to this delicate creature before him. And yet -

"You have got to be kidding me!" she snarled, lips drawing back over her teeth like an irate dog. Artemis blinked, momentarily stunned. This was not exactly the reaction he had expected. On the way below she had been afraid, but now that fear was either gone or deeply suppressed. He marvelled at how she had marshaled herself to attack an unknown creature, in the dark. But he surely could not have got it this wrong. Holly was delicate, angelic, a beautiful and insubstantial creature to be put in a gilded, lovely cage for her own protection. She was -

"You're insane!" she snapped, and he could not help but agree even as a small part of him was injured at the accusation. "I'm not going to stay with you, I'm not your damn property - Human," she intoned suddenly, eyes suddenly more magnificent and magnetizing than ever, "Your will is mine. Release me." Her voice, lovely as ever, was nevertheless layered with an undertone of something more, something... inhuman.

Artemis merely blinked again. If that was a method of persuasion, it was none he had ever encountered, but he was uncommonly resistant to such methods - his long, strange life had ensured that. "Holly," he said instead, ignoring her look of abject disappointment and frustration that her trick had not worked, "you must listen to me now."

In a moment, as the beautiful, fierce woman in front of him began a tirade laden with obscenities, he thought perhaps there had been a better way to phrase that. His angel had become a wildcat before his very eyes.

"I know I am not worthy," he began unsteadily, "of your beauty and kindness, my angel, but please, try to - "

"The hell I will!" Holly was in her element, evidently, and he wondered where the miscalculation was, how he could have ever thought this woman fragile and in need of protection when she was so clearly a warrior.

And yet - he had never considered her to be as lovely as she was now. Warrior queen, hopelessly out of her depth but fighting to the end.

He would, in the future, replay the next few moments over in his head a thousand times. Had there been a way, had there been some small movement, any words to counter what would come. He would conclude that there had not.

There had been no way to forestall his judgment.

Holly surged to her feet, all grace and strength in the elaborate dress he had dreamed of seeing her in. She stood on the bed and looked him in the eye, and he forgot himself in that moment, on eye level with her and falling helplessly into the hazel glory of her eyes. And it was all the distraction she needed.

In one clean movement, she reached forward and ripped the mask from his face. And Artemis screamed.

Partly out of shock and partly out of horror, the roar burst from him as he clapped his hands to his face. But it was not soon enough and he saw, through the gaps of his fingers, her face, transfigured to almost as hideous as his own by pure, unadulterated terror. Anger boiled up from his heart, balling in his throat like a sob, and burst out his lips.

"How could you?" he bellowed, wrenching his hands from his face. "Holly, HOW COULD YOU?"

She stumbled from the bed, backing away from him. He stalked after her, his vastly longer legs eating up the space between them until he had her backed against the wall. She trembled in fear at his approach, her previous fire subdued under layers of horror and disgust.

He hated her, in that moment. But not nearly as much as he hated himself.

"Is this what you wanted?" he shouted, barely aware of his words. "I gave you everything! Everything! Well, come along and see then, my dear - you wanted a monster? Here's the monster!" Part of him, the little chunk of him that all along had been shaking its head in dismay at his actions - it was horrified now, but he did not care. He grasped her shaking little hands in his own, too incensed to notice how they dwarfed hers or the hard weapons calluses on her palms, and pressed them against the ragged skin of his face.

In a quick, decisive move, she twisted his hands, forcing him to release his grip. He could only stand in mounting horror as she fled to the bathroom, brought back to himself by the sound of her retching violently into the basin. The acrid scent of stomach acid forced its way into his nostrils, followed by the copper tang of blood and the musk of fear-sweat that rolled from her - and, he realised, from him.

He had dug her nails into his face, he realised, when the tears stung open wounds and he tasted blood, red coating his hands. He swayed on his feet, strength sapped, as Holly gagged in the bathroom and the world crashed to an end.

He slumped to the floor, one hand automatically going to cover his as much of his wretched face as possible. His anger was gone now - it was usually a fleeting thing - but as he grappled on the floor one handed (and fruitlessly) for his mask, he was filled now only with a sense of dull grief. She had seen it, seen the hideous shame he kept hidden in the dark. She would never love him now. And to his immense shame, the tears welled up in his eyes, bony shoulders trembling with the force of his sobs he could not contain.

"Oh..." It was so soft he barely heard it, a whisper of a breath of a noise. He could not see, eyes clogged with tears and with the hands he used to cover his face from her pitying eyes. He could not bear pity. Not from her.

"Oh, Frond," she murmured, eliciting a moment of confusion from him that broke through the thousand other miserable emotions swirling around in his head. "Oh, by the gods. Your face."

And when he finally managed to open his eyes, she was holding his mask.

He heard her slump to the floor, felt the darkness descend as the candles went out. He stayed, crouched to the floor, hands hiding his monstrousness from her even as the darkness covered them both. The muffled sobbing sounds from the other side of the room were far, far worse than the memory of his own uncontrolled weeping. She was restrained and quiet, and it only broke his heart further, when the sound of them slipped away into the quiet.

He leaned against the side of the bed, with only the sounds of her breathing to let him know of her presence. And for long hours, that was how they stayed.

"Holly?" he asked at last into the darkness, hands clasped over his face even as the night shrouded him.

"Yes?" she replied from the other side of the room. It is the first thing she had said in hours, and he took note almost automatically of her voice: rough from crying, a little hoarse with the hours' disuse. Had it been anyone else, he would have been livid with rage, but it had been him that created that rasping note in her crystal voice, for making a mockery of that single syllable.

And yet all he wants to do is crawl inside her voice and never think again.

"You're not human," he murmured into the darkness, hardly able to breathe. He did not know what he wanted her to say back - to shout at him, to scream, to damn him for ever looking at her in the first place. But he had no control anymore, he lost it the moment he looked into her eyes, and they were no longer the angel and the pupil. They were merely Artemis and Holly, two disillusioned individuals sitting in a ruined bedroom beneath an Opera House, and even as he waited for her reply, he could not imagine the world as it now must be.

"No," she finally said, a trifle unsteadily. "No, Artemis, I'm not."

It was the first time she had ever said his name, and the frisson of pleasure it sent rippling over him he considered to be completely unnecessary, and wholly justified.

"Thank God," he replied.


	12. Chapter Eleven: Secret and Strange Angel

A thousand apologies for the late late late update; I can only plead uni assignments and exams and lectures and sheer bloody laziness. I won't take up any more of your time; here it is!

**Disclaimer**: Artemis is Artemis. Phantom is Phantom. They belong to other people. I try not to remember this because it makes me sad inside.

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_**Chapter Eleven - Secret And Strange Angel**_

She had not set out to lie.

When she had awoken, in the strange underground bedroom with no memory of how she had arrived there, she had been afraid. Terrified, even. But it was as though the blanket of sweet, cloud-soft ignorance that had covered her for the last several weeks had been ripped away and now she had to face the cold. There was no Angel, just a man - a manipulative viper of a man, with a lunatic's eyes.

And then he had come to her and it had all gone straight to hell. Even now, hours later, knowing he had retired to his own rooms and was nowhere near her, Holly still trembled at the thought of that face. She had seen fairies ripped apart by troll attacks, seen dwarves crushed by landslides. She had known of so many bad things in the world but they were shredded to pieces by the memory of that monstrous death's head. That face on a man's body... what horrors he must have suffered, what a torture it would be to merely look in the mirror...

She was only an elf, after all, and elves are by nature creatures of emotion. She could not imagine that even after a lifetime on earth - how old was he, anyway? - she could have borne the terrible weight of that horror on her shoulders. And now she had seen, it had been her own rage and curiosity that had done it, and there was no turning back.

The Angel - the Voice - Artemis was a corpse. A living corpse of a man animated by anger and misery and that bright, manic love she saw glinting in his eyes when he looked at her. Yes, love. he loved her and he had manipulated her, and for the life of her she could not see how the two could harmoniously coexist. Yet he had not a face, only the semblance of one, and so perhaps he could only feel a semblance of real emotions...

It was cruel, she knew, and she was not accustomed to being a cruel elf by nature. And he was pitiful, and for all the lies and secrets Holly was forced to face some harsh truths. There was no such thing as angels - there never had been any such thing as angels, only madmen and monsters. And now she was imprisoned by him, trapped in a gilded cage like a songbird to perform on demand. The tight little ball of anger in her chest intensified into a white heat suffusing her whole body; it was the only way to fight the fear that crept along her spine and whispered terrors in her ear.

Fairies were creatures of freedom and flight; she could feel every nerve in her body twitch at the reality of her captivity. Her heart was heavy with anger and dislike for the fiend that had done this to her; she let her fury build until it permeated every inch of her, stoking the flames of her anger into a righteous bonfire that threatened to consume her. And in doing so she hardened her heart to him, and to her own pity. She would survive his torturous love, his maddened affections. She would drive out her sympathy with hate.

_xx_

After the unmasking he did not come to her for days. He left her things while she slept; fruit and vegetables, fresh water, books and flowers, always fresh flowers. She did not see him leave them so she assumed it was while she slept and attempted to stay awake, but the restless monotony of the bedroom he had penned her in left little else to do but close her eyes and pretend she was home.

She was flicking through one of the books when he finally deigned to return. Artemis - the Phantom, she reminded herself - strode into the room, mask in place with only his thin lips and unholy blue eyes to be seen. He was almost bouncing with glee, she noted dispassionately, and loathed him for it. "Holly, my love!" he nearly sang, halting in front of her and bringing his hands together with a clap of joy. "It is time for us to sing!"

She was really getting sick of this, she reflected. He had forced her fingers to gouge at his face, to maim him, to _touch_ the stark reality of his deformity. He had wept inconsolably afterwards, as though overcome by the knowledge of what he had done and that she now knew his secret. He had then ignored her for days. And now he wanted to pretend nothing had happened, that his mask and her captivity were merely trifles they could forget about in exchange for a pleasant afternoon. She was beginning to think he did not know her, that he could underestimate her so thoroughly.

Deep in her reverie, she followed him from the bedroom into what she presumed was the main room. She could remember nothing of his home from the night she had been abducted; she assumed she was underground, from the lack of windows and the colour of the stone. The main room was a wild mish-mash of art, music, and countless other bits and pieces she did not recognise. Statues with costumes and wigs, canvases hung up next to architecture plans, and along the far wall amongst the craggy stone a large pipe organ stood, bestrewn with sheets of music and pens and ink.

Pen and ink! In the 21st century! She'd already known he was mad, but this went beyond what she had believed possible. It was as though he wanted to act out a former time as thoroughly as he could; the furnishings were all antique, and she could see no telephones or televisions or any of the other silly little devices the Mud People used for their amusement.

The front door was open, she noted with amusement, as she peered through a small room to see the lake ebbing and flowing against its banks outside. There were numerous other doors leading from the main room to Frond knows where, but as she looked around she realised Artemis had been watching her, with a flicker of amusement in his eyes.

"See something you like?" he asked cautiously, as though unsure as to her reaction. She glared at him in response, and was pleased to see him flinch. "Right. Well, if you come with me..." He nearly ran over to his organ, sitting and flicking through the multitudes of music scattered haphazardly on top of it.

She followed, but stopped just far enough away for him to know she was not going to cooperate. "When are you going to let me go?" she asked, her voice steady and her eyes on him.

His chipper attitude flickered for a moment, long enough to confirm to her that his ebullience was a facade. "Now, what do you feel like today? I thought perhaps _Otello_, or - "

"You cannot cage me here forever," she enunciated clearly, watching him closely for any sign of weakness.

He continued as though he had not heard. " - we could go on with _Faust_, you have been doing so well with it - " Her blood boiled; how dare he act as though she was so trivial as to be ignored in favour of his grand schemes for her voice?

"Did you hear me? I said, I'm not staying here!"

" - yes, I think _Faust_ is best for today, so if you'd like to start from - "

_"I will never sing for you again!"_

That gave him pause. "_What_?" he breathed, and she was perversely pleased to see his jaw slacken, his bright eyes dim. "You will not sing?"

"No," she confirmed. "You can cage me and you can lie to me and you can do whatever you want, but I will not sing for you."

"Your voice is mine!" he bellowed, and she shrank back a step against her own will. He himself was not so terrifying as the sheer presence of his voice, both smooth and jagged at once and so very, very angry. "Mine! I have created your voice and you will not deny me it!"

"I will!" she flung back at him, and was pleased to see him flinch. "My People will come for me, and when they do they will destroy you." A lie, to be sure, but she wanted him to be afraid. She just wanted him to _stop_.

"Will they?" he fired back, turning in his seat to regard her with his blazing eyes. Even seated, they were on eye level. "Do you think so, Holly? Where are they then?" He swept one elegant hand in a gesture that encompassed his entire house. "You've been here a while, Holly Short, and they have not come for you. You are alone." His eyes softened, the anger leaving him as quickly as it had came. It was the most frightening aspect of him, she thought, that quick change from murderous to merciful. "You are with me now. You don't need anyone else."

She wanted to stamp her feet and scream, but controlled herself. She was not a child, she was an grown elf and she would master him. Eventually she managed to control her anger to the point where she could hiss, "I will never belong with you. And I could never be happy down here, in the dark."

A terrible sadness came into his eyes and he rose, forcing her to crick her neck all the way up to look at his face - well, mask. "I am sorry for that," he said. "I truly am. Because that means you will unhappy for a very long time."

And as he walked away, she caught the defeated droop to his shoulders, the way his entire body seemed to curl in on itself. He looked over his shoulder, only once, as though by having a parting glance of her could he leave. "I love you, Holly," he said, as though that would change something with her. Seeing no response in her hazel eyes, he continued on, out through the front door and into the world outside.

She did not need to hear the click of the lock to know she was trapped.

Sinking onto the organ bench, she let out a sigh and tried to process what had happened. Her encounters with him were beginning to run along a similar track; confusing and confrontational, and without outcome. They were in a stalemate.

As she gently touched the keys, creating a soft melody in the silence, she saw her name, written in untidy red scrawl, atop a nearby table. Tugging the sheet of paper free of the many others with it, she stared into it for a long time. It was her, perfectly replicated, the curve of her cheek and short buzz cut delicately and lovingly reproduced. And yet the elf in the portrait was lit up with beauty, and more importantly with femininity. Holly knew objectively that the woman in the picture was her, but she had never seen herself so... well... _girly_.

Was this how Artemis always saw her? Beautiful?

And in that moment she knew. Knew what she had to do and how she needed to act to free herself from the bonds he had placed upon her. Knew that there was only one way to soothe this savage beast in the guise of a man - albeit a hideous one - and that it was tenderness, not anger. She would have to pretend to love him - or at least to tolerate him, even if her stomach roiled in protest at the thought of his fury and his face.

She hated him, so it should not matter that she intended to lie to him to gain her freedom. But against her own will she was drawn to him, and in the very heart of that hate was a small nugget of pity and kindness. She regretted it, but she was desperate.

And this was the way it had to be.

He appeared the next day with a bouquet of flowers, his head low, looking at his feet when he spoke to her rather than her eyes. He was reminiscent of nothing so much as a scolded schoolboy. And in her heart she did feel a little pity for him, this haunted, disfigured lunatic with the voice of the heavens, who could be innocently gentle like a child or mad with wrath like an avenging angel, all in the space of a few minutes. But he had abducted her and lied to her, manipulated her and deceived her, and above all trapped her and caged her like an animal, just like she'd always expected of the Mud People.

But she knew he didn't see her like that. He loved her, and it was his weakness.

So she placed her hand on his arm - the highest point of him she could reach - and said, "Would you like to sing now?"

The tentative smile he gave her from beneath the mask made her heart ache. And she knew it would not be as easy as she'd thought.


	13. Chapter Twelve: Well, This Is Unexpected

This chapter owes a great deal to Susan Kay's brilliant novel _Phantom_. it also owes a great deal to Ru-Doragon - hopefully this will make you want to strangle me less - and all my other glorious reviewers, who are still reading this story two years after I published the first chapter. (Where does the bloody time go?)

**Disclaimer**: Artemis Fowl belongs to Eoin Colfer. Phantom of the Opera belongs, in its various guises, to Gaston Leroux, Susan Kay, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and probably a lot of other people who will have to get used to the fact I can't be arsed looking them up.

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_**Chapter Twelve - Well, This Was Unexpected**_

And so they sang.

Every time he heard her voice he was transported, an altered man. it was as though when her voice was raised with his he could be the man he'd always longed to be. Normal, with a normal house and a normal wife who did not shy away from his face or his hands or his heart. He was entirely too jaded to believe he would be able to walk out amongst the world mask-less, even with Holly at his side. It would be enough to live with her a normal life. Secluded, yes, but together.

If only they could clear up this misunderstanding between them, this persisting belief of hers that she belonged elsewhere, away from him. He wished he could make her understand, but try as he might, he could not find the right way to tell her of what he truly desired. He could not express the deepest emotions of his heart to her in words; Artemis was a verbose fiend by nature, but when it came to Holly he was utterly tongue-tied. He had managed to spit out that he loved her; it was possible that was the first time he had ever uttered those words to a living being, ever.

And didn't that make him feel like an insane old monster.

Artemis was well aware he was, at the most, a few years over forty. He wasn't sure. But he had lived so many terrible moments, packed tight into those brief years, that he felt as though he had walked the earth for centuries and still found no kind words, no comforting arms. He was altogether too weary for this experience with Holly; the exhaustion warred with his heart and his heart won out, although barely.

Holly was an experience all of her own; even if he had been on speaking terms with humanity his whole life, been enfolded in that embrace of hypocrisy, cynicism, and lust - it would not have prepared him one iota for the experience that was Holly. She barely reached his elbow, yet she dominated the conversations they had together; she was the more powerful presence in the room and he, who deferred to no one, found himself backing down to her opinions, her thoughts - hell, her _whims_. Surely this was not the effect of love alone; Artemis had not known love like this before, the desire to consume and to encompass her within his affections, to make her his own so no one could claim her.

But didn't his senses scream to him that to do so would be a mistake, that caging nightingales removes their desire to sing and rusts their pretty voices? For all he loved her, there was so much he did not know, had thought he did not need to know. Her occupation, her favourite food, her favourite singer and a thousand other trivialities. He had wanted her voice, but her voice was inextricably linked to her soul; he could not have one without the other. He was not sure he wanted to.

Their days continued on together in relative peace. Holly softened towards him for reasons he could not comprehend but he did not care to question it: what mattered is that they were together and happy and she would come to love him as he so desperately needed her to. A week, two weeks - he did not know how long it had been since he had brought her below with him, and if he was honest with himself, he neither needed to or wanted to. Holly was with him and they would remain together, and he clung to this belief with all the power of forty years of suppressed longing and grief.

He walked into her bedroom one morning to find her gone. A brief moment of panic, rage intermingling with despair, before the sound of slightly pained grunts met his ears. He peered around the bed to find her on the ground, performing a series of rapid push-ups that frankly made him feel a little queasy. Physical exercise always made Artemis get a little hazy; the iron strength of his wiry limbs came naturally, but as he aged he noticed an odd tightness in his chest. Really, the only form of exercise he was comfortable with was the Punjab lasso, and he hadn't needed to bring that out for years. One of the perks of having a former bodyguard as his 'conscience' was his continuing safety, yet he was all too aware that if he returned to his former habits of murder and mayhem, Butler would not hesitate to act. Butler would decidedly not approve of this, and would no doubt take steps to return Holly to the world above.

Well. Let him try. Artemis was not a genius for no reason, and he had turned his genius to the design and construction of a dozen different traps and alarm systems, all protecting his lair from intruders. He was fairly confident Holly's 'people', whoever they were, would not be able to penetrate the barricades and protections of the fifth cellar.

He was recalled to the present by Holly.

"Morning, Artemis," she said from beneath gritted teeth, lowering herself up and down with an expression of fierce concentration. Artemis promptly clapped one hand over his eyes in horror. Where were the dresses he had bought her, all carefully measured to her unique size? The soft blouses, the delicate skirts? Why on earth was Holly _working out_, to use the common vernacular, in a pair of short shorts and one of his old undershirts?

"Good morning, Holly," he replied, because really, what else could he say. "Would you care for some breakfast?"

Her smile was like the sun, and yet it was tempered by the fact that a smile shouldn't really mean so much to him. Artemis' own smile was a thing of bared teeth and thin, taut lips; the sight of it had been known to give small children nightmares. He recalled catching a glimpse of it in a mirror in his home when he had been a very small child, before the sideshow. He could recall the unbearable moment he had comprehended that the monster in the mirror had been himself, a moment that had prompted his lifelong fascination with mirrors, and with monstrosity...

"Where'd you go, Arty?" Holly asked flippantly as she passed him. He was suddenly aware he had spent the last minute or so staring into space, while Holly had entered her bathroom and changed, and exited again. _Really, Artemis_, he scolded, _try and act a little __normal__._ But there were more pressing matters, for a start...

_"Arty?"_

"Artemis is a little long," she replied, walking to the kitchen and helping herself to the bowl of fruit. He was amused. He had never had a nickname before; no one had wanted to learn his name long enough to invent a diminutive. He cocked his head, regarding her petite form as she slumped into a kitchen chair with a sigh. He sat across from her, thinking he had never seen a lovelier sight.

"Sleep well?" he asked, promptly cursing himself for his inanity. Sleep well... could he be more dull? Holly thankfully didn't seem to notice his self-flagellation, chomping into her apple with an air of a starving man confronted with water.

"All right, I guess," she said, raising a brow. "You?"

"I didn't," he said, before he could stop himself. Her quirked brow remained, and he stumbled over his words in his haste to elaborate. _Christ_, he hadn't been a teenager in years, how did she do this to him? "I mean, I don't need to sleep. Much."

"Way to go, Cullen," said Holly drily, throwing her apple core into the bin. Artemis frowned behind his mask.

"Cullen?" Holly shook her head in amusement.

"My... friend back home, a techie, he has interesting tastes in literature."

"A friend?" The words were out before he could stop himself. Her glare made him duck his head. He wasn't sure of this altered Holly, who was kind enough in her way, whose sharp edges seem blunted, but even a dulled blade can cut.

"Yes, a _friend_. So what's with the name?" she asked, moving onto a banana. "I thought Artemis was a girl's name."

He sighed. "It is." At the expression on her face - questioning, mildly aggravated - he elaborated. "It was my father's name. Artemis - Artemis Fowl, the First."

Her faint smile was wondering. "So you do have a last name. And family."

He scowled a little. "Not any worth having." He didn't want to tell her more, he really didn't, but he was quite enslaved to her will and he did not wish to deny her anything. Except her desire to leave, of course, but in time she would come to see it was for her own good. "My mother was a socialite, my father a criminal." Her smile slowly melted away as he got into his tale, he always took a twisted enjoyment in recounting it, even to himself. "I was born a maimed and twisted thing, as you have seen." He admitted this with a waved hand, as though it didn't still hurt, all these years later. "My mother could not bear the sight of me, and my father was loathe to deny her anything. And so one night when I was very young he took me to a travelling fair of freaks and left me with them. I never saw my family again." Well, that was not quite true, but she didn't need to know that.

All this time he had kept his eyes on the weathered wood of the kitchen table, but now he raised them. To his surprise, hers were warm with sympathy, the hazel alive and gleaming. Not pity. Sympathy. It was not the same.

His body went rigid against his will when she leaned over and laid a tiny hand on his arm. "I'm sorry, Artemis," she said, her voice low.

He rose, brushing away the old emotions. "It matters not," he said coolly, walking to the sink. _Anything_ to keep his back to her while he got control of himself. He was not really surprised when a firm presence on his elbow forced him to turn. He stared down at her, wondering if she was as lost in his eyes as he was in hers. Doubting that she was.

Her hand dropped to tentatively take one of his own. He couldn't move, couldn't think. Her scent wrapped around him and all he could feel was the soft pressure of her little hand. "Why do you always wear gloves?" she asked, the inane question lightening the atmosphere as she peeled said item of clothing off with surprising quickness.

"Don't!" he snapped, but it was too late; his hand was closed between both of hers, skin to skin, and the most wonderful sensation of warmth spread over his chilled flesh.

"You're so cold," she said, chafing his fingers gently. He dropped to his knees without being conscious of it, until he was eye to eye with her.

"Poor circulation," he breathed, watching her warm brown skin surround his own deathly pale, skeletal fingers. No one held his hand, not ever. No one had ever wanted to. But here she was, close enough to kiss, if only he was not trapped behind his mask. And the touch of her - her hands were not soft and feminine but hard with calluses and blissfully real, solid to touch. These were not a lady's hands, but a warrior's.

"Who are you, Holly?" he asked, dumb with joy. Her hands stilled.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, what do you do? Where do you come from - I know you're not French. Who are you?"

She yanked her hands from his, her expression tight, lips pursed into a thin line. "What business is it of yours?"

He was bemused. Her reaction was intense; if he didn't know better, he would have said afraid. "Well, I love you, I want to know more about you - "

"Can't you just be happy with what I've given you?" she snapped. And just as he was opening his mouth to refute this statement with all the strength he could muster -

The phone rang.

The trill of the mobile phone sounded from behind the locked door of his bedroom, and he sighed, rising to his feet, ignoring the cracking of his knees. Of all the times... but he knew that particular tone. Butler. He could not ignore this.

Of course, he had the feeling Holly might be barricaded in her bedroom by the time he returned. The thought alone was enough to make him terse with Butler.

"What is it?" he snarled into the receiver once secluded safely in his rooms.

"Master Artemis," said that familiar, deep voice. "We need to talk."

"Oh, do we?" his employer sniped, well aware of how juvenile he sounded and utterly uncaring. "I am disinclined to acquiesce to your request, Butler, and - "

"Sir," said his bodyguard, and a chill raced down Artemis' spine. "I know."

He sank down onto his bed. "Of course you know," he said wearily, the old tiredness coming back to him. "Be at the edge of the lake at eleven tonight, and we will talk."

And he couldn't deny the speed which he returned to the kitchen to be with her once more.

She was still there, much to his shock , sipping a glass of water and making the odd face at it - pollutants, he remembered her saying days ago. It tasted fine to him. She looked up at him when he entered with a curious expression of resignation; it broke his heart.

"I apologise," he began, but she cut him off with a wave of her hand.

"Don't," she said with a sigh. "I... I overreacted. Won't happen again." He smiled, but of course she couldn't see it, hidden behind the mask. He liked to think she sensed it.

"Is there anything you require before I leave you?" he asked, and her grin was half-hearted and wan.

"I don't suppose a weight bench and an exercise bike would be too much to ask?" she queried, and Artemis couldn't suppress a smirk.

"Whatever for?" he asked. "You're too slight and small for such things, Holly, and anyway, why would you want them when you could sing?"

She regarded him with a degree of pity, and something else he couldn't identify. "You're right, Artemis," she sighed. "Why indeed."

And he had the feeling, for the umpteenth time since he had brought her to his home, that he did not understand her at all.


	14. Chapter Thirteen: Sparks

I'm baaaack!

Disclaimer: I recently discovered you could actually be friends with Eoin Colfer on Facebook. OMG. Also, I own nothing.

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_**Chapter Thirteen - Sparks**_

She had never been particularly good with men.

A big part of it was her choice of career, of course. Men inside the force were put off by how good she was at her job and those outside the force felt threatened by the fact that she was on it in the first place. And she hadn't much cared, to be honest. Oh, she'd had her fair share of flirtations in high school, before she'd hacked off all her hair and announced she wanted to be a cop when she grew up. There had been a couple of guys in her college years, minor things, and little since, although if the way Trouble Kelp had been staring at her across the cafeteria lately was any indication, maybe not for long.

Trouble. She might never see him again if Artemis had his way. Not that she believed that, she had the plan, after all. But what was he thinking, what was the commander thinking? Would she even have a life to go back to after been held captive by a Mud Man for gods know how long? Tainted, unclean, would she be driven from the LEP like a plague or worse, like a human?

It was not a comforting train of thought.

Anyway, she'd had little enough experience with fairy men, let alone Mud ones. And Artemis was like no man on earth, mortal or otherwise. He was stark raving bonkers. Her plan of being nice to him was going well enough, but for the life of her she couldn't work out when to stop. When she was crossing the line between 'kind-and-not-upsetting-the-crazy-man-but-friends-only' and entering the territory of 'aw-you-poor-thing-do-you-want-a-hug'. Added to the confusion was Artemis's apparent isolation from the rest of the world to the point where holding his hand was enough to make his eyes well up. Weird.

But there was one thing she knew: tonight he would be at the lake, at eleven. Her adroit eavedropping had taught her that much. She had no clock to tell the time and no clue where the lake was, but she could escape. She could, she could, _she could _- she had to, she couldn't stand the captivity any longer. Elves were meant to fly and be free, not caged below ground like a - like a _troll_, or something.

So she endured the long day with him, the singing, the fawning, the touching of the hem of her dress - her _dress_! She _needed_ to get out of here - when he thought she wasn't paying attention. She bid him goodnight prettily after dinner, citing a headache and closing the door, listening to him putter around the house for a while until she heard him retrieve his hat and his coat. He paused outside her door, she could hear his breathing, and then he moved away with a heavy sigh. She held her breath until she heard the front door click, and then she sprang out of bed, shoving her feet into the delicate and impractical shoes Artemis asked (forced) her to wear and yanking open her bedroom door.

The small problem was that she couldn't actually see the front door she needed to exit the house. She knew the general direction Artemis exited the house, but there was no door, just wall. She knew she wasn't insane, that by all rights there should be a door in front of her, but there simply was not.

So. Plan B, then.

Artemis' bedroom was locked with a simple mechanism. It stung at her a little when she realised this was because he had never had people in his home before and so had no reason to bolt the door against anyone. Why couldn't she just hate him and be done with it? She hated what he had done to her, but not he himself. He was an odd and fragile creature, after all. Even if he was a lunatic. He belonged in a nice padded room somewhere. She could come back and ensure that once she had been below ground once more, amongst her People. She could return with a full LEP team - no, two LEP teams - and lay some unholy smackdown on Artemis. As gently as possible, of course. Mentally unstable he might be, but he was a criminal, and he deserved to be treated as such. And in regards to her present situations, she knew, from her past experience with criminals, that there was always another way out.

She picked the lock and entered the bedroom, flicking on the light switch. And then she turned around and walked out, and then re-entered. She felt her jaw physically drop.

The walls were black, the floor was black, even the ceiling was black. The furnishings were black. It was like stepping back a century or so, the antique furniture and general sense of dust covering everything making her feel like she had crossed an invisible threshold into some past time she had little knowledge of and desired to know even less.

But there was a door. A plain, black door, set amongst the black walls with their faint markings. She edged through the room, past the bed - one of the few dustless items in the room - with the black sheets in the centre and out through the (unlocked) door. She spared a thought for Artemis' arrogance that she - or anyone - would be unable to get as far in either direction as this that he felt he did not need to lock the door, and fled into the dark.

Ten minutes later, she knew the reason for that arrogance. The tunnels leading away from the fifth cellar were a maze of false ends and sharp corners, a construction that even Daedalus himself could be proud of. Any mortal to come this way would no doubt be hopelessly lost in minutes, and it was only her superior fairy instincts that helped her find her way through the darkness. But even her heightened senses couldn't help her as she moved further into the labyrinth, and she was growing concerned after her fourth wrong turn when thankfully she heard voices up ahead through the darkness.

" - can't do this, sir, it's not right."

"I think you'll find I can do whatever I want. I can have whatever I want. Don't I deserve it by now?"

"Sir, that is neither here nor there. Let the girl go."

"And what if I don't?" Silky, smooth, and furious. "Really, Butler, a gun? So predictable..." Against her will she shivered. She had heard that Voice before, back when she had oh so foolishly believed Artemis was an angel. She had asked to see him and his voice had been all ice and fire and fury, turning her to stone under the cold-burning heat of his rage. She could only imagine what his eyes, coupled with the frigid Voice, could do to a person. But then Artemis said, in quite a different voice, "Do you know what she calls me?"

The other man - Butler, presumably - was silent. Artemis introspective and thoughtful was more dangerous than an angry Artemis, she knew from experience.

"Arty. When she's not shouting at me for being a bastard, of course, or throwing things at my head. She threw a teacup at me today, can you imagine? The sultana's angel of death, standing there covered in tea and being stared down by this tiny little _angel_... I need her, Butler, no matter what you or even she says, and no one will be taking that away. Not even you."

Silence followed Artemis's little speech; Holly could hear her own heartbeat like thunder in her ears, convinced the two men out by the lake could hear it too.

The gun cocked. "Sir, don't make me do this," said the stranger. Artemis laughed.

"You always underestimate me, Butler, even now," he chuckled, and then there was silence.

Silence, and something else.

Terrible, breathy whistling, like a throat trying to suck in air that would not come.

_Oh, Artemis._ She couldn't leave.

She bolted out from her hiding place to see the tableau in front of her unfold with almost dramatic slow motion. Artemis held a giant of a man off the ground, a thin piece of rope around his neck, as the stranger choked and spluttered and slowly turned the colours of a dying man.

"Artemis!" she burst out, and the deformed man's head whipped around, the death struggles of the man he was murdering knocking off his mask. She did not flinch from the sight of his face, but Artemis did from the sensation of cool air on his unmasked face, Butler hitting the ground with a thud.

"Holly - I - " Artemis stuttered out. Holly felt sick. She could still see the lasso dangling from Artemis's limp fingers. She had seen it all.

Nevertheless, she felt compelled to ask, "Artemis, what did you _do_?" in horror. He cringed away from her; that familiar surge of pity welled up again. Just what had happened to this man to destroy him so completely? She had the feeling the little he had told her was merely the tip of the iceberg.

"Don't be angry with me!" he pleaded, sounding all too much like a child for her anger to remain much longer, and forced herself to think. She could heal him, but she was out of magic and they were underground... wait... She was by a lake, standing on muddy ground with the big man coughing and wheezing at her feet, Artemis mashed up against the rock wall as though trying to melt into the stone.

There was water. There was dirt. And there was an acorn in a capsule around her throat.

The giant Mud Man was taking great heaving gulps of air, but they were becoming shallower. He was dying. Artemis stood back with his hands pressed against his thin lips, his eyes fever bright and terrified.

The familiar blue sparks raced through her body, and she felt herself become suffused with magic and vitality once more. D'Arvit, but she had missed this. Artemis had not noticed, too fixated on the sight of his friend slowly suffocating in front of him. A hideous statue, almost gargoyle-like, frozen with horror. She hated Artemis, yes, but she didn't hate this stranger. And if she was totally honest with herself, she didn't hate Artemis so much anymore, either. Those few moments she had thought he might be dead were few she did not want to have to remember again any time soon.

The right thing to do was never the easy thing to do.

So she shoved the stunned Artemis aside, dropped to her knees, and murmured heal as her hands touched the stranger's already-purpling throat. The magic fled her into his body and even as he convulsed she felt Artemis's lightning gaze switch to her in shock and awe, locked onto the blue sparks exiting her hands in waves and streams.

And now, she thought grimly to herself as she healed Artemis's friend and cursed her own kind nature, things were bound to get messy.

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Note: the black bedroom is from Susan Kay's _Phantom_. Erik's bedroom is entirely black with a coffin in the centre and the notes of the Dies Irae on the walls. Cheerful fellow.


	15. Interlude: The Commander

Tiny, tiny little speck of a thing, and no Artemis/Holly goodness, alas, but necessary to keep things moving forward. And Christ knows I have enough trouble with that on this fic.

**Disclaimer:** I, through some mad design of fate and chance, have managed to become Eoin Colfer, Gaston Leroux, Susan Kay, and Andrew Lloyd Webber - yes, all of them, simultaneously and yes, it's not a pretty picture. I have Eoin's face, Gaston's legs, Susan's torso, and Andrew's... well, never mind.

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_**Interlude: The Commander**_

Root threw down the mission report in disgust. A dozen of LEP Retrieval's finest officers, and they failed to bring back one lone female captain. No, more than that, they failed to rescue one lone female captain from the clutches of a demented, masked Mud Man. They were a disgrace. A shame to the entire LEP. Root had shouted at them for a few hours, directing his formidable vocabulary of insults at everything from their mothers to their appearances to their questionable ability to do their job. He'd sent them scuttling away in fear, but it hadn't made any difference. And it certainly hadn't made him feel any better about the situation.

Root could practically _feel_ Cudgeon sneering at him, not to mention the whispers in the corridors. And beyond that, there was his own personal worry for Holly's safety. Young Captain Short was one of his finest officers, her gender notwithstanding, and the thought of her imprisoned and captured by some Mud Man gone crazy set him to chewing at his cigar more vigorously than ever.

Something had to be done.

But what? Further reports of the area revealed a whole subterranean empire of tunnels and traps, devised by the most cunning of opponents. Root knew Foaly had been wracking his brains for weeks for a way through the thing, with no avail, sending every system and virus and trick he could think of at the small fortress below the Paris Opera House. He also knew it was driving the centaur mad. The thought of a mere Mud Man thwarting his systems with such elegant precision was enough to send him to working ever harder. Besides, Foaly was fond enough of Captain Short himself to want her back safe and sound.

And then there was Cudgeon. It was no secret among the Lower Elements that Cudgeon fancied himself a better candidate for Root's job than the man himself, and that he would do anything to oust him and gain power. This whole messy affair had come at the worst possible moment, and Short's questionable behaviour as well had cast doubt upon her role in events and, indirectly, the wisdom of Root's vouching for her throughout the program. He was hardly decrepit, but somehow Cudgeon managed to have half the LEP speculating on whether he was becoming senile and should be replaced.

Ha. Like they could. Root would step aside if he felt there was a better commander to be found, but Cudgeon? He was more concerned with how the acorns would look on his epaulettes rather than the demands of the job. They had been friends once, but they had found different paths. And now Root was his former friend's boss. It was not a recipe for friendliness and back slapping all round, even in a workplace less stressful and intense than the LEP. Mostly Root just tried to avoid him.

Although it was hard. Especially with Cudgeon's habit of coming into Root's office.

"The door was shut," Root snapped over his paperwork as the door swung open and Cudgeon's very shiny shoes came into view. "It's polite to knock."

"Is it polite to reduce three members of a LEP Retrieval team to tears over a female captain?" drawled the other elf in sarcastic, barely respectful tones.

Root grunted, and contemplated punching Cudgeon in the face. It was a stress thing. "What do you want?"

"Only stopped by to give you this," Cudgeon said flippantly, dropping a report onto the desk. "My analysis of the Short situation and an appropriate action plan approved by the Council to remedy the situation."

Root flipped through it with disinterest to begin with, but he felt his eyebrows shoot up his forehead as he moved further through it. No. It couldn't be.

"Not a..."

"Oh yes," Cudgeon grinned, cocky as ever and evidently thrilled with his own cleverness. "A bio bomb."

"But that will kill Captain Short as well!" Root gasped in horror, cigar falling to the desk. Cudgeon shrugged.

"An acceptable loss, to ensure the overall safety of the Lower Elements and all its inhabitants." Cudgeon shrugged. "One lone female officer? Please. I hardly had to convince the Council into it."

"You don't have the authority to do that," Root enunciated with cold civility, knuckles white on the edge of the desk as Cudgeon makes his way to the door. "I would remind you of your place here."

Cudgeon turned, cocking an eyebrow. "Of course, sir," he said. He pulled Root's door closed and grinned.

"... For now."


	16. Chapter Fourteen: It Had To Come To This

A double update; I've surprised myself. I think this means I've used up my inspiration quota and you shouldn't expect anything more for the next three months.

**Disclaimer:** Nope.

(That's a nope, I don't own anything, not a nope, I can't be arsed writing a disclaimer, just to clarify.)

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_**Chapter Fourteen: 'Cause It Had To Come To This**_

Sparks.

Sparks, for the love of God! He'd roamed every corner of the world searching for a place to belong, where he could be accepted, and he'd seen everything. So he'd thought. Every atrocity comprehensible, every curiosity and every marvel and every wonder. Creatures of supposed faerie and myth that turned out to fakes or mere genetic freaks. Men and women so hideously distorted by the womb or the tolls life had taken on them that he had felt almost normal in comparison. The often shockingly ugly nature of the ordinary, affairs and car accidents and children snatched from life by the withered, clever fingers of fate.

And he had thought he could never be surprised again. Thought that there was nothing left in the world to stun him, to reset the world on an axis other than the one it turned on now, predictable and cold and hollow. Until he had fallen in love with a woman so far outside of his realm of comprehension he was left breathless and stumbling, dizzy from the ecstasies and miseries of _being human_ for the first time in his life. Human and in love and foolish, joy like that first dizzy taste of morphine in the blood that fizzles away all too quickly.

That she was different, he knew. That she was small and slim and feisty and untameable, he knew. That her ears were pointed and her forehead broader than the norm, he comprehended. That she was like absolutely no one he had ever met before.

But... sparks. Blue sparks that shimmied from her fingers to skim over Butler's body, pooling at the choking bodyguard's chest and throat and easing his spasms. Sparks that had seemed to glint in her steady hazel eyes as she looked back at him over Butler's thrashing frame.

Sparks.

And he was absolutely flummoxed.

He took her home, back to the house, and then returned to the river bank to Butler. His former bodyguard sat in the mud, hands massaging his bruised throat. "You killed me," Butler said with odd calmness, rising to his usual (formidable) height with only a little less deadly grace than usual.

"Yes," Artemis said, his throat dry, voice cracking. "But - you're back now - "

"I've put up with a lot in service to you, Master Artemis," Butler said in that same emotionless voice. "More than anyone else would have. Your discharge of me has not lessened my devotion to you. But now," No, not now, Artemis didn't want to hear it, didn't want to hear that he had wrenched free the last tie of loyalty the bodyguard had felt for him, "It's all over."

"Wait - Domovoi - "

Butler's massive head swung round, the deep-set eyes staring him down. "Don't," he said - was _all_ he said - and he disappeared back into the night.

Artemis was torn, wracked with the sensation of acute loss. He was not just his old bodyguard - Butler was his friend, Artemis corrected himself, and how could he have missed the emotion he felt for the other man? Butler had been with him longer than any other, through the most mad of crises and excruciating of circumstances.

And now he was gone forever.

Artemis stood on the bank for a long time, staring into the darkness, wrapped in the night.

_xx_

He returned to the house, expecting Holly to either be long asleep or ready to stab him with a letter opener. He wasn't entirely sure which he would prefer. It would mean not finding out how she had managed to produce lightning healing sparks out of her fingers, but on the other hand, it would mean not having to face up to the fact she had seen him strangle a man alive. Well, whatever came, he would face it like a man, even if he so closely resembled a monster. Stepping into the kitchen, he stripped of his gloves, regardless of the sight of his bone-thin, pale fingers. He'd seen them often enough in his life, after all. He felt numb and slightly mad, the events of the night beginning to catch up to him.

"I made you a cup of tea," Holly said, her voice out of the gloom startling him. She was in the shadows, and he turned up the lights to bring her profile into relief. "Earl Grey. Just the way you like it."

He accepted the cup; it felt half like an apology and half like an offering, and he wasn't sure which to go with. "Thank you," he said; common courtesy cost nothing, after all. Holly shrugged, and he noticed a similar cup on the table beside her. The silence that dragged out between them was both companionable and awkward, strange and familiar, and he couldn't bring himself to break it. But she was the strong one, in the end, speaking first to break the quiet that gripped the house in its talons.

"Guess you want an explanation," said Holly at last, and yes, he really did. "I don't really think there's any point in keeping it from you anymore. I'm going to tell you everything. But first, I have a confession."

He leant against the counter, examining her as she perched on his kitchen table. It was a scene of domesticity, a man and the woman he loved in their house, together. He might have lost Butler, but at least he still had Holly. "Go on," he said, cupping his hands around the mug of tea, inhaling the steam.

"Please don't hate me," she begged, and he wanted to reach out to her, calm her down. She seized one of his hands, chafed it between her own, and then returned it to him almost too quickly for him to comprehend it. She was distracted and he found it charming, her distress, that she could be riled up into such a state because of him alone. Although he believed there was no reason for her fear. There was little she could do he would not forgive her for. "You have to promise me."

"I do, Holly," he said. "I promise." And he meant it, with all of his heart, whatever his heart was. The obsession of a lunatic or the affection of the devoted. That, like so much else, was entirely up to her.

"I can't lie to you anymore," she said, and something in him hummed awake, a sick anticipation, a dreamy kind of fear. He wanted to run away before he had to hear this, but he didn't want to, as well.

"Lie, Holly?" She turned to face him and yes, those were tears, on her lovely cheeks. But her eyes were stone.

"All this time... I've been pretending I care for you," she said all in a rush, as though it was easier to say at high speed. He felt a dull sinking somewhere in the region of his chest. "I've been lying, because I thought if you believed me, you might let me go. I've been pretending that I understand you, that it might be possible for me to love you..." She trailed off, but even if she had continued further, he would not have heard. A roaring seemed to overtake his ears and the world seemed to tilt to the side, overwhelming him. All along... she had lied. Of course she had. Because it was ridiculous, downright _obscene_, for someone like her to love him, wretched, ugly him.

He had been wrong. He could not forgive her this.

He turned away, fell into a kitchen chair like it was the only anchor he could imagine in the storm swirling inside of his head. The cup in his hands shattered and bit into his flesh, but he didn't feel it. He didn't feel anything but the echo of her words inside his mind.

She. Had. Lied.

About everything. Not just one tiny little aspect of their odd, fractured relationship, but about it all. She had given him false hope, made him believe that his love could be reciprocated. Oh, he had hoped that all along, but her kindness, her sweetness had melted away decades of despair that now crashed over him once more, all the more obliterating for the suddenness and unexpectedness of their return.

He didn't weep. This was a pain past tears, an agony that reached past the heart to resonate deep in the soul.

Yet another lie, another rejection... all because of the damnable _face_.

"Why... did you decide to... tell me now?" The words were dragged out of him, a guttural rasp, a shattered growl. And then, delight of delights, horror of horrors, she touched him, her hands on his shoulders, one rising to cradle the cheek of the mask.

"Because, Artemis, everything's different now," she said, talking fast, as though trying to fit as many words as possible into the time before he explodes. "I realised something when I tried to run away. I couldn't. I didn't want to. I don't want to leave you. Artemis - " She stopped, and the expression on her face melted away, into one of... terror? Well, he assumed it was terror. He had misjudged her so completely, been so totally hoodwinked, that perhaps he didn't know her at all. He wondered how it was possible to be so attuned to her, and so numb to the reactions of his own body and mind. Maybe it was her sheer presence, superseding his consciousness, erasing his sense of self until all he cared for was her.

And what on earth was that noise...?

It was him. Terrible, creaking laughter, the cackle of a madman. He didn't know he could make a sound like that, and it would have frightened him a little had he been capable of any emotion other than this devastating betrayal and... and...

Amusement.

After all, it was a little funny.

A lot!

She was still touching him. He brought his hands up to touch hers, dragged his fingers down to her forearms. She was unmoving in his arms, as though not entirely sure he was sane. Well, that was fair enough. He wasn't sure either.

"Artemis," she said, voice quivering, and it held no power over him. He was free from it, emancipated from his dreadful dependence on her. "You do believe me, don't you? You believe me that I love - "

He lifted her, far off the ground, the curves of her body pressed to him. "Oh, my darling Holly," he interrupted, sighed it out in the Voice, twisted and distorted into a monster's seductive purr, "how can you expect me to trust you now?"

He couldn't control his hands, pressing tighter and tighter, and even her gasp of pain, the well of crimson underneath his nails, didn't recall him to himself. His own, all over his hands, oozing out amongst the shards of porcelain still stuck in his skin.

Their blood, together.

How fitting.

She did not resist when he scooped her up, took her to her bedroom, threw her onto the bed and locked the door behind him. He heard her beat her fists on the wood but he did not care. The Artemis who cared about her feelings was gone, buried deep, and he swept their shared paraphernalia from the past few weeks from the kitchen table, sending it all crashing to the floor. It was the detritus of a false life, the accumulated trapping of a lie. It meant nothing.

And he started to plan.


	17. Chapter Fifteen:What Horrors Wait For Me

Hello, my lovelies. Thank you all for your kindness, warmth, and enthusiasm in following this mad little story for so long. It means so much. Now, one of my reviewers has very kindly said - thank you, by the way, **Gatorade88** - that although they liked the story, they'd passed over it in the past because the summary is kind of lame. I concur. So, who can recommend a new one? 'Cause to be honest I need all the help I can get.

Back to your regularly scheduled angst.

**Disclaimer:** Oh, to own Phantom... to own Artemis Fowl... sounds like an awful lot of work to be honest, so I'm quite happy just to write about it instead.

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**_Chapter Fifteen: What Horrors Wait For Me?_**

She had never known a sensation like this before. A close approximation would be to the death of her father, it was the same kind of soul-tearing pain, but somehow this was worse (and that made her feel even more terrible.) For this was her fault, and accompanying her grief was a twisting, grabbing, roiling mass of guilt that would not let her go. It had climbed inside her and started festering, collapsing in on itself like a monstrous black hole, sucking and sucking and getting ever denser. The guilt had begun somewhere in her chest and quickly spread to every corner of her body, a black, sucking thing that clung to her as determinedly as tar to the skin. She could not shake it loose. She wasn't even sure she wanted to.

Artemis since that night a week ago had been... well, were there words for it? For the phantasmic way he lurked around the house below the lake, his fevered eyes on her, watching - it defied description. She was reasonably sure he had placed a camera in her bedroom even, to watch her when she locked the door against his questing, demanding eyes. There was nowhere safe from Artemis, not anymore. She had ruined that. There was no more singing, no more lessons. No more tentative touches and clumsy compliments and stupid jokes. Oh, how could she have been so foolish as to take all of that for granted, to not even notice it. Now the absence of Artemis' attempts to win her rang out through the house like the chiming of a bleak bell, and the only sounds he made were the harsh rasps of his breathing and the soft scuffing of his shoes as he followed her from room to room, watching, always watching.

Poor, poor Artemis. So desperate to gain her favour, throwing his poor battered soul out into the open with every clumsy opening gambit, every attempt at a conversation. She had hated his persistence, but she now saw what it must have cost him to try and try again, not only her rebuffs but a lifetime of rejection by the rest of the world holding him back. Every hesitant touch and every long loving stare - the poor, poor, ugly man. Now just those terrible eyes. No more smiles now - not real ones, at least, just grimaces of artificial amusement behind the mask. The Artemis she had almost loved was gone, or at the least hidden deep behind this stranger with the tinny, mocking laugh and the madman's smile.

Sometimes he left her, and perhaps the absence of him was worse. Worse than his constant presence was the time when he was gone, leaving her to wonder where he was and what he was doing - and who he was killing, her subconscious would add, every time wracking shudders up her spine. She couldn't imagine what he was up to - and yet, she had some inkling. For music would issue from his chambers, music that made her want to weep and tear her hair out, or beat her fists against the stone walls and shriek by turns. He would repeat phrases and bars, going over and over a certain measure for hours, almost as if -

_As if he was writing something._ Writing something that was consuming him, day by day, dragging him down into the sea of his own tormented genius, sinking farther and farther away from the shore. She could not follow him there. She didn't even know if he wanted her to.

She had tried to tell him, tried to explain. How afraid and lost and furious she had been, how her imprisonment was a terrible thing for someone like her. He never answered, nor showed any sign of hearing her pleas. He hadn't even let her explain about the magic; he had let that slide in the face of her grandiose betrayal. He had been so fascinated by that before, like a curious child, she had seen it in his eyes. And now... nothing.

The guilt tormented her in waking hours, where she would replay every moment of their encounter and all of those before in her mind, wondering if there was even the slightest chance their course might have been changed. But for all the stress of those remembered horrors, it was worse in dreams, for there every half-thought and tense moment of that final confrontation could take flight into eerie, mad imaginings. Where he had killed her or she had killed him or, in the worst, he had buried his face in her shoulder and she had wrapped her legs around his waist and done -

Well. Done things she was reasonably certain could not be done between an elf and a Mud Man and anyway, she had never done them before so how would she know how to do them anyway? Damn Foaly and his romance novels.

She was certain if she stayed with Artemis much longer, in this house of marvels below the lake, that she would go mad, that her sanity would wander away one morning with the escaping darkness and not return. He consumed her every thought, and to stay in the twisted world of his creation was to court disaster. Yet she was equally certain that to leave him would be to unseat her completely, yank away the moorings that had kept her tethered to reality these past few weeks. And she ruminated on what might happen when she returned home to the Lower Elements - _if_ she could ever return to the Lower Elements. Was she tainted by the love of this Mud Man, by the mortal music that for a few blissful hours on stage had imbued every fibre of her body, saturated her in its glory?

She did a lot of thinking. There was precious little else to do. Not for the first time she wondered where the old Holly Short had gone. Holly Short that didn't fear anything, didn't bend to anyone's will. She felt terribly old in comparison to that other Holly, although surely it hadn't been so long? She hardly know the passage of time, for there were no clocks in the house below the lake and there were no windows. They were not necessary so far beneath the earth. Night was all she had; endless, bleak night, and it did not matter when she slept or when she ate or when she read for the world was all the same regardless.

The old Holly Short would have bludgeoned a wall down by now. She did not know - could not know if she had been improved by Artemis' tutelage, by his lunatic love. She had been changed, that much was certain. Layers of cynicism and world-weariness had been peeled away, to reveal the wide-eyed child underneath, still willing to believe in angels and the marvellous beauty of her own voice. And that lead to ever more wondering. Why had she trusted him so quickly and implicitly, why had his Voice set up reverberations in hollow places in her she had no idea even existed? He played her like the finest, rarest music instrument, not even needing his hands on her to coax her into life.

He was gone now, and there was no music issuing from his rooms to assure her of his presence somewhere in the house at least. Perhaps he was sleeping, although she doubted it. He had been sleeping less and less of late, running on fumes and Earl Grey. She resolved to wait for him to come home, to try once more to talk to him. Maybe, this time, he would listen.

Except that doing nothing at all can be a very taxing task and eventually she dozed off on the sofa, feet tucked up beneath her, curled into a ball. Her sleep was distracted and restless, half-visions tempting her out from the black only to vanish when she pursued them. Typical of late. She woke to the sight of a pair of very polished shoes, and then a pair of perfectly pressed black trousers, and then all of Artemis from feet to glinting mask, more than six feet of skeletal, hovering darkness. She bolted upright in pure shock, nearly tipping off of the sofa as her legs tangled in the blanket gently draped over her. She didn't remember putting that blanket on...

_Oh, Artemis._

"Holly," he said, his Voice a howling shriek of itself. It was as though none of the agony he allowed himself to feel was being expressed through his throat, and oh, the sound made Holly long to clap her hands to his ears and scream to drown him out. That would not be productive, though, it would serve no purpose. So she merely remained still and silent as he shoved a folder of music into her hands. She opened it, sight-reading by habit, and nearly shrieked.

"What's this?" she managed to ask instead, hesitance blown away in the wake of the music she could already hear prickling awake inside her skull. Mad music, insane music - Artemis' music.

"My opera," he replied, and that was all that was needed. The opera of years of compressed desire and loneliness, the opera written by a man whose genius had gone unnoticed and unadmired, left to rot down in the darkness below the Opera with the rats and the memories. Well, not anymore. Now it would be sung to the sky, to bring to mankind a little of the music of heaven.

Or perhaps hell.

"How?" she asked, leafing through the pages. "The managers - they would never approve this."

She had the impression that underneath his mask, he was smiling. It made her glad he was wearing it; not because she feared his face, but because his smiles of late were demented, horrific baring of the teeth, no more a smile than the wide-yawning lips of a scream of horror. Perhaps it was. Perhaps he was as horrified as she was at what he had become, at the road they were inextricably bound together on, the blind leading the blind down a passageway of dimness and monstrosity - oh, perish the thought - !

Yes. She was going mad.

"The managers have agreed," he murmured in that awful Voice, the one that was her angel all bent out of shape, the devil in disguise. "Now all that remains is you. Holly..." His gloved hand caressed her face; she reined in her shudder with the greatest of restraint. "I will not beg! Not for your love, and not for this. You will sing for me. If you will not love me, then at the least, you will sing for me." It was not a question and she did not bother replying to it as if it were one. They had crossed the point of no return now, and she would sing whether the Mud People or the LEP themselves tried to stop them.

It was his will.

"Come," he said, electric eyes implacable. "We begin now."


	18. Chapter Sixteen: Silent And Resigned

Well, here we are again. Thanks, as ever, to everyone who reads and reviews this odd little fic, you all rock my world.

**Disclaimer**: I own neither Phantom nor Artemis Fowl. If I find out, though, that by some miracle I do own both of them, I will immediately retire somewhere far away and warm and enjoy the spoils of my conquest.

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_**Chapter Sixteen: Silent And Resigned**_

Was there a word for how he felt? A phrase, a note, _anything_, a magic talisman that he could speak aloud and there would be no more pain, no more doubt, no more betrayal. Just ice, and lack of feeling, and peace. The absence of anything else. Wasn't that peace?

Artemis had never wanted to eviscerate himself more. The great fool, to believe that a young and beautiful creature such as Holly could want him! She was beauty and light and grace, and he was a shrivelled and loathsome old monster cowering beneath an opera house, writing his dreadful music and sickening at heart. Well, not anymore. Now he would reinvent himself anew, transforming from a hulking wreck of a man into the Angel of Doom. It was not such as stretch. He had been Holly's Angel of Music, after all, for such a brief time... why not the Angel of Doom as well?

It had been torture, to be in her presence and not speak to her. Not kiss away the lines of pain on her lovely face, to not draw her tightly knotted hands from her lap and wrap them in his own. The sting of her betrayal had not erased his great love for her; he was not sure even death could do that. Perhaps after he died that love would remain, spiriting him on to become a true ghost, haunting these terrible vaults to eternity in search of the woman he loved. Such morbid ruminations his mind fell into these days, and yet it was fitting. He had finished his opera, his love song to his monstrous and repugnant love and lust, and now it would be performed in all great state of occasion, in the above world. His music would bleed into their minds and hearts, splendour and horror mixing into one lethal fusion, until they would finally know what it felt like to be him. He would finally be part of the world, as his became theirs, altered beyond imagination by the terrible beauty of his music.

Completing his opera had been exhausting and yet uplifting, every note giving him some small release from himself. The agony that had imbued every corner of his twisted soul had been transferred to the pages and he was left empty. Empty, but for every time he looked at her face and heard her voice, when all his forgotten humanity would come hurtling back and he would have to escape into his chambers, lean against the locked door and shake from the pain and the wonder and the sheer _mortality_ with which he pined for her. Damn her, he wanted her still. Loved her and adored her, needed her and longed for her, all of her, every inch of her tiny frame and every note of her exquisite voice. It was a torment and a salvation wrapped all in one, and the way his hands ached to touch her made him swath his skeletal fingers in glove to avoid the madness he knew would awake if he were ever to touch her bare skin.

The opera would be his master's piece, his final ploy for entrance to that great hall of masters. He would sweep away all his previous pathetic attempts for greatness with this final, magnificent leap. His fledgling beginnings in the carnival, frightening foolish children and over-excitable adults? Nonsense. The horrors he had wreaked in the Middle East, the monstrosities born of a mind soaked in drugs and liquid lunacy? Child's play. Terrorizing the managers and horrifying the ballet rats and murdering stagehands? Like taking candy from a baby... not that he ever would, of course, that would be cruel. Children and animals, the only innocents left in this world, and never for long. Eventually the world would claim their innocence as it claimed everything else.

_Don Juan Triumphant._

The title had come from a few scraps of parchment he had found as he explored his new home beneath the Opera, shortly after arriving so many years ago. The bare handful of notes and words he had been able to decipher from the ancient paper had been beautiful, exquisite and yet frightening, even for him. It was a gateway to what his own music could be, those brief lines, written in a spiky crimson hand by some long dead composer. No matter. His would be different, _better_, an inferno of an opera that raped the senses and soothed them all in one. It would stand as a monument to his genius and his loneliness, his power and his possession, and it would be played. He would ensure it, by any means necessary, and indeed by the only means he knew worked without fail, every time. Blackmail and extortion, coercion and duress, the ways of the Opera Ghost.

_Gentlemen,_

_I do apologise, my dear messieurs, in advance for disabusing you of your previously held notion that I had left you for good. Rest assured that your Opera Ghost is as alive as ever, so to speak, and watching. Your bumbling management of my Opera has been a source of contention for me these past months but I have kept silent, focussed on a far greater distraction than anything you meddling little fools could conjure. In that spirit, I have written you an opera. Here, I leave the finished score, Don Juan Triumphant!_

_Please extend my fondest greetings to the company, along with this: although La Carlotta's legs seems to have healed, her performance skills sadly have not improved from her time away from us. She must learn to act, not her usual trick of strutting around the stage. As for our star, Mademoiselle Holly Short, she will soon return to you to play the role of Aminta in my opus._

_Gentlemen, this ghost can only hope to impress upon you that your place is in an office, not the arts. However, if you insist in this foolish endeavour of continuing to keep my Opera from me, I can assure you; I will play for keeps._

_Your obedient servant,_

_O.G._

Artemis dropped his opera and letter onto the managers from his usual secret hiding spot above their office, stifling a half hearted chuckle at their immediate flurries of activity. It was all the same, every time. They would check the room for possible entrance routes, swear, curse, perhaps throw things. Andre would whine and Firmin would intimidate his partner into doing as he said. It was all very routine, and over his fifteen year tenure as the Opera Ghost Artemis had tired of it. Poligny and Moncharmin had been far easier to manipulate, true, but the whole ritual of it was the same. The same screams at his silhouette in the corridors and the same murmurs as he created some bit of mischief or annoyance. It tired him. Artemis would be perfectly content to retire somewhere peaceful, perhaps return to his home country and settle in a cottage, a piano and Holly his only music - well. That would never happen. Not now.

It had been the dream of a fevered mind, an imagining that he had held with him all of his days. As a child with his mockery of a family and then as a boy locked in a cage, forced to display his monstrosity for all the world to see. He had dreamed of a kind mother and a strong father, brothers to play with and sisters to dote on. And as a young man in the Middle East, longing for all the pleasures of the body and yet craving the sweet familiarity of home and hearth, of a wife and children. And finally now, old enough to know better, still desiring a woman he could call his own, a companion to spend the rest of his life with, one lone individual that would atone for all the horror and fear and shame all the others had showered him with.

He was wiser now. It would never be his. Nothing would be his, save for music. But the managers agreed. They always did. As Artemis departed he heard them discussing the arrangements for the new opera, in resigned tones that told him once more he had got his way. Ironic, that he could bend these fools he cared not for to his will when he could not sway the woman he adored. But then again, what aspect of his long existence had not been ironic? An artist, magician, composer, architect, performer, angel... a man with so many gifts, born with the appearance of a monster. God's little experiment with humanity, his little joke, if indeed there was a God. Artemis fervently hoped not.

As he made his way to his home beneath the Opera, he reflected on Holly. Although they still sang together, her voice would need a great deal more work before she was sufficient to return to the company to rehearse for _Don Juan_. He would have to go over most of the opera with her, note by note, phrase by phrase, perfecting her so when she went above, there would be no question of who was the best choice to play Aminta. But, he realised with sudden horror, it would mean a great deal of time with her, in her company, having to suffer the dual pleasure and misery that being with her inspired in him.

_Oh, no._

And, as he had anticipated, rehearsals with Holly were like a knife to the heart. Most of the time he could disassociate, go back to that state of mind he had inhabited when he was her teacher alone, cold and objective. But every so often, perhaps a satisfied smile on her part that she had got it right, or the delicate movement of her hands as she sang, and it would be as if a bolt of something angry and hot had been forced down his throat, tightening it, burning his heart. She drove him mad, and he was certain that if he had not crossed the fine line between brilliance and lunacy years ago, he would do so now, all because of her. The mystery of the blue sparks meant nothing to him now. Why would it? The greater mystery, of her sweetness to him, had been solved in one fell swoop, and there was little left in the world other than seeing his Opera performed.

For Artemis was reasonably sure he was dying.

It was the little things; the tightness in his chest, the occasional tingling of his left arm, the way he was so much more easily fatigued of late. He was not concerned about death, only that if he died suddenly Holly would have to find her own way to the surface, and there were many traps between his home and the Opera proper. But he was sure it was a way off yet, enough time to see_ Don Juan Triumphant_ performed and Holly be his enchanting, seductress Aminta, if only once.

Before, when he had still believed a life with her might be possible, he had contemplated going above to seek out advice regarding his symptoms. She had given him something to live for. Now, of course, that he knew she did not love him, there was no point to bothering. Perhaps in an ordinary person a summary visit to a doctor could put things right, but Artemis did not dare. His face was such a curiosity, if anyone saw it there would be an instant influx of attention. More than anything, Artemis did not want that. He knew there was no way to correct his maimed features, and he had accepted that long ago. Did it stop him from longing for a normal life, to be a normal man? No. But he had learned so very long ago that you can't always get what you want.

He didn't want to let Holly go above for rehearsals, knowing he had so little time left. But perhaps he would be able to think more clearly if he was not in her direct proximity so often. Oh, he would be watching, there was no doubt of that. And she would return with him after rehearsals above were completed each day. But at least he would be able to secret himself away in the flies, high above her, away from the intoxicating effect of her presence. And so he turned to her one day, after tweaking the last of her songs, to tell her.

"We're finished."

"Finished?" Holly echoed drearily. Her eyes were flat, her skin dull. He was destroying her, but he couldn't bring himself to care.

"I mean, you're ready. Ready to attend rehearsals with the rest of the company." A spark of something woke up in her eyes, and he turned away in disgust. "Don't look so excited!" he said crossly, straightening his music unnecessarily to avoid looking at her. "You won't be alone, Holly! I will attend with you to make sure you behave, and when rehearsals finish for the day you will return here, with me," he emphasised. "You cannot escape."

Unfortunately, he mused, neither could he.


	19. Chapter Seventeen: The Phantom's Opera

Only a short one tonight, I have to get to sleep for workies tomorrow. :( Still, it's better than nothing, right?

Disclaimer: Sleep... oh, no, I own neither Phantom nor Artemis Fowl in any of their glorious forms.

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_**Chapter Seventeen: The Phantom's Opera**_

Rehearsals were an absolute madhouse.

For a start, Artemis' opera was like no other music on earth. It seared the ears, raped the senses, and left the listener howling in the void even as it soothed the ache and warmed the soul. The dichotomy of a brilliant genius tortured by a monstrous deformity made into song - Holly could understand this, given her intimate knowledge of Artemis as the Phantom. But the rest of the company were left breathless and bemused, wondering whether this would be the performance that ruined the Opera once and for all.

And her absence had bought her no friends among the company, either. The general consensus was that she was a freak, and Holly didn't mind so much, that. They were just ignorant Mud People, what did they know? What bothered Holly was the ever present eyes she felt on her at every turn - not just those of her colleagues, but of the invisible, mad Artemis, watching at every moment, waiting for her to make a mistake. She was damned if she was going to give him the satisfaction.

So she stumbled through, past those initial days of sarcasm and snubs, until the company settled into an odd sort of routine and as much calmness as possible presided over events. And it was well they did, for the Opera Ghost was a demanding taskmaster and was in the habit of making the stage shake if someone hit a note that butchered his music beyond his endurance. Perhaps he was pleased, or merely irked to discover that the trick stopped working after the first twenty times, and that the company would take the opportunity to sit down for a break or sneak out for a smoke.

Affairs within the house below the Opera were more complicated. Holly was required by Artemis to remain with him below the Opera when she was not needed above. She applauded his reasoning with the professional side of her even as her emotions screamed to be free, to escape the confines of the house and leap to freedom. So she understood but did not like his reasons for keeping her by his side, tethered to him, or otherwise intimidated into silence by the threat of his presence. Were she to tell someone the truth, he would simply kill them. And were she to run, he would slaughter anyone who aided her. She could only wait in silence.

She sat at dinner with him every night. She would eat and he would watch, eyes steely, the air fraught with tension. Of course he could not eat with his mask on, she understood that, but his presence was strictly supervisory, as though he suspected she would attempt to starve herself to death if he gave her but half an opportunity. Her attempts at engaging him in some form of communication beyond the bare essentials were foiled at every turn.

A sample conversation:

"How do you think rehearsals are progressing, Artemis?"

"Not quickly enough. Eat your carrots."

"What do you think of the sets, Artemis?"

"Garish and unsightly. Eat your broccoli."

"I thought the chorus was very well today. Do you agree, Artemis?"

"Not particularly. Eat your cauliflower."

And once, finally:

"I think my dress for Act II is cut too low, Artemis, what do you think?"

"You'd have to have something to fill it out with first. Eat your salad."

Oh, he was cutting and cold, and every word seemed to lance right down to the core of her. That brief flash of his previous wit, even directed as it was square at her bosom, was enough to give her heart for a day or two. But there was no more displays of anything beyond his cool indifference, and once more she sunk into the gloom that pervaded the house below the Opera.

Rehearsals were a blessing, in that sense. At least they were interaction, even if was human interaction, and even if all she could say of her long absence with Artemis was, "I was busy." Even though she could feel Artemis watching her at every moment, his presence a brand and a throb that everyone throughout the Opera could feel. The managers shook and stammered and managed brave smiles when they attended rehearsals, and the chorus girls and ballet rats were positively trembling with terror each time someone mentioned the Phantom. Holly understood their fears. They were just young girls and women, for the most part, and they did not understand the Opera Ghost. They were frightened. Yes, Holly could understand their fears, but she did not share them. Her horror of Artemis was of a far darker timbre.

By the time the performance was three days away, the entire company was stretched taut, the atmosphere tense and quiet with a loaded stress. Holly was not as much needed as some others, the benefit of Artemis' intense hours of private rehearsal time. She knew her role as much as she was ever going to, and even though it would probably not measure up to the exquisite sound that Artemis had imagined for Aminta, she was going to do her damnedest trying. So she sat on the sidelines with Piangi, who was playing Don Juan, as Carlotta glared at her from the chorus and only occasionally managed to dance without tripping over her own feet. Holly had never thought, when she had dreamed of being an opera star as a girl, nor when Artemis had driven her hard for hours to ensure her voice was flawless, that she would ever find opera to be so boring.

Holly perked up a little at the sight of the group of shorter-statured performers required for Act III as they approached her. Artemis demanded many unique people for his opera, the servants of Don Juan and the eventual catalyst for Aminta's betrayal of him. Holly liked them. They were friendly and kind and she didn't have to look up to them, for one. More intimidating were the two circus 'strong men', muscle bound and fierce, Don Juan's bodyguards, and the sisters joined at the waist, his maids. Their presence infuriated many of the regular company beyond all reason. She had heard many reasons for their being in the opera, from infuriating the managers to ruining the Opera to a symbolic statement, but Holly knew the real reason, and her heart burned with it.

Still, they smiled when they passed her, and she smiled back. They were good people. Only one did not smile, his hat drawn down over his eyes, and as he passed her she frowned. Something was wrong...

"Short!" Holly's head whipped around, to the sound of her name on such a familiar voice.

"Trouble!" she hissed in terror and delight. "What in Frond's name are you doing here?"

"Undercover!" he whispered out the corner of his mouth. "Short, the whole Lower Elements has gone mad. You've got to come home."

"I can't," she whispered back in horror. "Listen, you've got to get out of here. You've no idea what Artemis is like -"

"Artemis?" Holly cursed. How could she betray Artemis yet another time? Reveal his hiding place, his haven, the only place left to him in this world where he could walk about unmasked and not suffer the jeers and scorn of mankind. Yet he had unquestionably gone mad, twisted right round the bend, and there was nothing she could do now except save herself.

"Artemis Fowl. He's holding me captive beneath the Opera."


	20. Interlude: Desperation Point

Just filler, my dears, but it's better than nothing. At least, I sincerely hope so.

**Disclaimer**: I love pancakes.

* * *

_**Interlude: Desperation Point**_

The base of operations was a run down, shambling sort of apartment, something that the Mud Men, with their endless manufacturing of modern buildings at the expense of the old, should really have gotten around to tearing down by now. But it was the property of the LEP, however discreetly, a base for their Paris operations as well as a safe house for LEP officers above the surface.

Root hated it. Hated the high ceilings and the boarded up windows and the sound of the cars roaring outside, the scent of the emissions thick and liable to burn the nose. And this was coming from a man whose cigar habit left his colleagues breathless... literally. Root would be more than happy to conduct his surveillance of the Opera House from below ground, but this had been marked a severe security threat by the Council, and Root himself had been ordered - like an errant school elf - to oversee the retrieval of Captain Short.

His cigar habit had gone through the roof from stress.

The computer beeped, announcing a message from below ground. Root hit 'receive' without looking at the computer, fumbling with a lighter.

"You better have good news for me, Foaly," he snipped, but it was not the voice of his tart-tongued techie that greeted him.

"Not quite, I'm sorry to say," drawled a voice that was decidedly not sorry at all. Root flicked his eyes to the screen and cursed to see the obnoxious, simpering face of Briar Cudgeon.

"What is it, Cudgeon?" he snapped, succeeding in lighting his cigar and breathing out a cloud of noxious, green-tinged relief. Cudgeon's face was obscured, momentarily.

"News from the council," he proclaimed nasally, brandishing a sheaf of papers in Root's general direction. Root peered in their direction and the computer beeped again, downloading a copy of the offending papers to a tablet nearby. His heart stopped cold.

"Bio bomb? Not this again, Cudgeon," he groaned, slapping down the tablet in disgust. "I thought I made it perfectly clear to you it was not your decision." Cudgeon's smile was an ugly, oily thing.

"You're quite right, Commander," he said, turning Root's title into an insult. "But it is the Council's decision, and they have put their foot down. You have one week before the Council actions an emergency plan - set forward by yours truly, of course - if Captain Short is not retrieved and the threat is not neutralised."

Root opened his mouth to roar back but Cudgeon was gone, leaving the commander staring at a gently blinking screen. Root groaned out loud, ignoring the sprite peering curiously at him, and smacked his head hard on the desk. D'Arvit, but Cudgeon was good. Sneaky, malicious, and insidious, but as clever as all hell. If the bio bomb plan came to fruition, he would be ideally placed as Root's successor for commander of the Lower Elements Police. Root himself would be shown up as a failure, unable to solve the abduction of one of his own people without outside intervention, and although it would be a slow process, eventually Cudgeon would prevail.

Root could not allow that to happen. But how?

Sometimes in life events occur that none of us expect. While Commander Root pondered the situation he had so abruptly found himself in, Trouble Kelp was finding himself in a rather large, bodyguard shaped situation. Only fast talking and an offer he couldn't refuse (without fear of being crushed with one swat of the Mud Man's massive hands) got him back to the base of operations alive. Root listened to his story with growing amazement.

"Let me see if I understand correctly," he said, voice very calm and controlled, and Kelp quivered. "You were foolish enough to be seen by a Mud Man and instead of extricating yourself from the situation and reporting it to your superiors, you told him everything?" Root's voice was still perfectly level, but Kelp looked like he was about to have a coronary event.

"Not exactly, sir," he quavered and then, remembering himself, managed to force himself to stand straight and the quiver out of his voice. "I brought him here."

"YOU DID WHAT?" Root bellowed in incredulity, glancing around the room at the fairy tech, the sprite techie, and finally down at himself, his epaulettes winking dully in the dim light. "Kelp, have you run mad?"

"He's outside, sir, in the garden. Sir, he's seen Short," and that made Root pay attention. Despite the discreet surveillance kept on the Opera House, only Kelp had managed to make contact with Short, and only for a few moments. The information she had given him had been nothing new, but at least now they knew she was being held totally against her will. There had not been much doubt, after all. Short - _Holly_ would have never betrayed the LEP by staying willingly with an enemy of the People. And yet...

And yet there was too much oddness about the whole situation, about the hunted expression in Short's eyes whenever he had glimpsed her or the way the entire company of Mud People seemed tense, disturbed. Threat hung over them like a cloud of darkness, a fear that seeped up from below the Opera House into the people who inhabited it. Root didn't like that. For him and his kind, underground was a haven - literally. A place for those long-ago hunted fairies to live and be free. The dramatic role reversal here, of underground becoming a place of death, was faintly disconcerting, like a live wire of discord tracking its way up the spine.

Root realised he had been silent too long. Kelp was watching him questioningly as he turned over the situation in his mind, dissembling and analysing, and finally he nodded, and walked out the door into the back garden with nary a flinch.

Except, well - holy Frond! The Mud Man was enormous, stretching impossibly high into the darkness, and Root felt himself break into a mild sweat. "You have information for me?" he demanded, hoping none of his nervousness of this giant human showed in his voice.

The Mud Man started to speak, his voice like the rumble of the earth in distress, and against his will Root found his lips stretching into a predatory grin.

Things were looking up.


End file.
